THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
JIM  TULLY 


GIFT  OF 
MRS.  JIM  TULLY 


TURNER 


UNIFORM  WITH  THIS   VOLUMf 

G.   F.  WATTS 

BY  J.    E.    PHYTHIAN 

BURNE-JONES 

BY  J.    E.    PHYTHIAN 

RODIN 

BY   FREDK.    LAWTON 

WHISTLER 

BY   FRANK   RUTTER 

ROSSETTI 

BY  FRANK   RUTTER 


CROSSING    THE    BROOK. 


TURNER 


J.    E.    PHYTHIAN 


AUTHOR    OF 

K-^  "    «  , 


f  MODERN  PAINTING,     "  G.  T.  WATTS, 
"BURNC-JONES,"   ETC. 


WITH    TWENTY-FOUR.    ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW    YORK 
MITCHELL   KENNERLEY 


Art 

Library 


CONTENTS 

i 

PAGE 
I.        ART,    LIFE    AND    NATURE  .  I 

II.        LIFE    AND    LIFE-WORK  .  .  .  36 

in.     TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH  .          .      118 

IV.        AN     EPIC    OF    HUMANITY  .  .  .150 

INDEX  .  .  193 


850152 


I 
ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE 

THERE  is  a  story,  one  that  might  be  difficult  to 
authenticate,  of  a  mediaeval  monk,  who,  having  de- 
parted this  life,  and  being  asked  in  his  next  stage  of 
existence  how  he  had  enjoyed  the  beautiful  world  he 
had  just  left,  replied  that  he  had  never  seen  its  beauty. 
Had  such  a  question  been  asked,  under  such  con- 
ditions, this  might  well  have  been  the  reply,  for  Ruskin 
tells  us  that  a  monk  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  when 
asked  why  the  windows  of  the  monastery  faced  in- 
wards on  a  courtyard,  instead  of  outwards  over  the 
valley,  replied  that  he  and  his  fellows  had  not  gone 
there  to  look  at  the  mountains.  Browning,  in  '  Fra 
Lippo  Lippi,'  sets  talking  a  monk  who  was  alive  to 
the  beauty  of  the  world,  and  its  wonder  and  power, 
'  the  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  lights  and  shades, 
changes,  surprises,'  and  who  asked  the  captain  of  the 
guard,  a  man  who  had  seen  the  world,  if  he  felt 
thankful 


2  TURNER 

For  this  fair  town's  face,  yonder  river's  line, 
The  mountain  round  it  and  the  sky  above, 
Much  more  the  figures  of  man,  woman,  child, 
These  are  the  frame  to  ? 

And  though  Lippi  was  a  very  unmonkish  monk, 
and,  in  his  keen  enjoyment  of  the  beauty  around  him, 
in  advance,  as  the  artist  must  needs  be,  of  most  of  his 
contemporaries,  yet  he  and  the  other  artists  of  his  time 
were  but  the  harbingers  of  a  day  when  men  would 
have  a  much  deeper  and  wider  appreciation  of  the 
beauty  of  their  dwelling-place  than  had  been  possible 
in  earlier  ages.  The  story  of  how  mankind  has 
gradually  come  into  enjoyment  of  this  priceless  source 
of  happiness,  which  yet  may  be  free  to  all,  has  often 
been  told,  and  need  not  be  formally  repeated  here.  It 
will  inevitably  come  up  incidentally  as  we  discuss  the 
art  of  Turner  in  the  following  pages  ;  but  it  is  to  our 
immediate  purpose  to  notice  that,  since  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi's  day,  landscape,  after  occupying  a  merely  sub- 
ordinate position  in  the  art  of  painting,  has  completely 
achieved  its  independence. 

Browning  recognises  the  old  subordination  in  the 
words  he  puts  into  the  Prate's  mouth.  The  fair 
town's  face,  the  river's  line,  the  mountain  and  the 
sky,  are  the  frame  to  the  figures  of  man,  woman  and 
child  ;  and  in  the<  pictorial  art  of  that  time  they  were 


ART,   LIFE   AND    NATURE  3 

never  more  than  this.  The  beauty  of  nature,  and  of 
nature  as  modified  by  the  hand  of  man  for  his  own 
use,  was  never  painted  alone,  entirely  for  its  own  sake. 
To-day,  the  pictures  in  which  there  is  only  landscape, 
or  in  which  the  figures  are  wholly  subordinate  to  the 
landscape,  form,  perhaps,  the  greater  number  of  all  the 
pictures  painted.  Probably  the  word  artist,  which  is 
really  one  of  very  general  significance,  would  at  once 
suggest  to  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  people  a 
landscape  painter. 

The  word  landscape  is  a  very  unsatisfactory  one  for 
the  purpose  it  has  to  serve.  Its  inadequacy  is  obvious 
when  we  consider  that  writers,  not  unfrequently,  but 
not  always  without  an  apology,  use  the  word  seascape. 
And  if  seascape,  why  not  skyscape  also  ?  Even  land, 
sea  and  sky  do  not  in  themselves  exhaust  the  land- 
scape painter's  subject-matter.  Nor  do  we  reach  the 
end  when  we  have  included  all  easily  visible,  natural 
objects,  living  and  lifeless.  Just  as  when  cattle  occupy 
an  entirely  subordinate  place  in  a  picture,  we  do  not 
think  it  necessary  to  catalogue  it  as  a  '  landscape  with 
cattle  '  ;  so,  if  human  figures  occupy  only  such  place, 
we  are  content  with  the  term  landscape.  Yet  no  hard 
and  fast  line  can  be  drawn.  That  dear  old  pedant 
Polonius  had  all  the  divisions  and  subdivisions  of 
dramatic  art  at  his  tongue's  end.  We  make  land- 


4  TURNER 

scape  cover  not  only  the  world  of  earth,  air  and 
water,  with  living  things,  including  man,  if  they  be 
merely  incidents  in  the  general  scene,  but  also,  if 
similarly  incidental,  the  objects  that  are  man's  handi- 
work, cottages,  houses,  churches,  castles,  boats  and 
ships  on  the  sea — in  short,  anything  that  is  to  be 
seen  ;  so  that,  in  common  acceptation,  a  street-scene, 
in  which  all  of  untouched  nature  that  is  in  evidence 
may  be  a  mere  vestige  of  sky  above  the  house-roofs, 
is  a  landscape. 

All  these  considerations,  it  may  be  said,  are  but  so 
much  commonplace.  Yet  it  is  necessary  not  merely  to 
have  them  in  mind,  but  to  insist  upon  them,  when  we 
are  approaching  the  art  of  Turner ;  for  if  we  are  to 
call  him  a  landscape  painter  we  must  give  a  very 
catholic  interpretation  of  the  range  of  the  subject- 
matter  to  be  included  within  the  term.  The  inadequacy 
of  the  word  becomes  so  obvious  when  we  consider  his 
life-work,  even  if  we  exclude  the  pictures  and  drawings 
that  come  clearly  or  doubtfully  under  other  recognised 
categories,  that  we  cannot  accept  it  as  descriptive  of 
the  content  of  his  art,  and  hardly  even  as  a  label 
negatively  to  mark  off  its  content  from  that  of  works 
that  must  strictly  be  classed  as  portraiture,  genre, 
history  or  what  else.  That  Turner  himself  recognised 
this  is  evident  from  the  titles  of  some  of  his  pictures, 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  5 

such  as  The  Bay  of  Ba'ue,  Apollo  and  the  Sibyl,  and 
The  Sun  rising  in  a  Mist,  Fishermen  cleaning  and  selling 
Fish.  If  we  generalised  such  titles,  and  the  contents 
of  the  pictures,  we  should  use  such  phrases  as  Landscape 
and  Mythology,  Landscape  and  History,  Landscape  and 
Genre,  and  very  often  the  word  landscape  would 
not  be  entitled  to  precedence. 

Referring  to  an  earlier  volume  of  this  series,  the  one 
on  G.  F.  Watts,  I  find  myself  repeating  here,  with 
little  more  change  than  some  elaboration  and  variation 
of  phrase,  what  was  said  there  in  the  course  of  a  com- 
parison of  Turner  with  Watts.  The  latter  desired 
to  paint,  and  his  desire  was  in  the  main  accomplished, 
an  epic  of  humanity.  It  is  obvious  from  Turner's 
works,  and  from  his  literary  efforts,  that,  in  his  own 
way,  he  had  the  same  purpose,  with  the  difference — I 
quote  from  the  earlier  volume — that  what  '  Turner 
looked  on  and  showed  us  from  a  distance,  Watts 
looked  at  and  showed  us  from  close  at  hand  ;  nay,  we 
may  say,  from  within.'  Elsewhere  I  have  had  occa- 
sion to  compare  Watts'  landscapes  with  the  descriptive 
language  of  the  Psalmist,  and  the  same  comparison 
holds  good  for  Turner's  pictures.  His  subject  was 
essentially  the  world  as  the  dwelling-place  of  man. 
Was  the  thought  of  God  as  within  humanity  and  all 
the  phenomena  of  life  and  nature  as  constant  with 


6  TURNER 

Turner  as  it  certainly  was  with  Watts  ?  I  cannot  say. 
With  this  possible  reservation,  the  words  of  the  great 
hymn  of  praise  are  an  exact  literary  parallel  to  many 
if  not  most  of  Turner's  paintings,  and  I  will  not  merely 
refer  to  the  words,  but  will  quote  them,  because  they 
will  arouse  the  thought  and  feeling  that  are  needed  for 
a  fully  sympathetic  appreciation  of  Turner's  work. 
'  He  watereth  the  hills  from  His  chambers  :  the  earth 
is  satisfied  with  the  fruit  of  Thy  works.  He  causeth 
the  grass  to  grow  for  the  cattle,  and  herb  for  the  service 
of  man  :  that  he  may  bring  forth  food  out  of  the 
earth ;  and  wine  that  maketh  glad  the  heart  of  man, 
and  oil  to  make  his  face  to  shine,  and  bread  which 
strengtheneth  man's  heart.  The  trees  of  the  Lord  are 
full  of  sap  ;  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  which  he  hath 
planted  ;  where  the  birds  make  their  nests  :  as  for  the 
stork,  the  fir-trees  are  her  house.  The  high  hills  are 
a  refuge  for  the  wild  goats  ;  and  the  rocks  for  the 
conies.  He  appointed  the  moon  for  seasons  :  the  sun 
knoweth  his  going  down.  Thou  makest  darkness  and 
it  is  night  :  wherein  all  the  beasts  of  the  forest  do  creep 
forth.  The  young  lions  roar  after  their  prey,  and 
seek  their  meat  from  God.  The  sun  ariseth,  they 
gather  themselves  together,  and  lay  them  down  in  their 
dens.  Man  goeth  forth  unto  his  work  and  to  his 
labour  until  the  evening.  O  Lord,  how  manifold  are 


ART,   LIFE   AND    NATURE  7 

Thy  works !  in   wisdom  hast  Thou  made   them  all  : 
the  earth  is  full  of  Thy  riches.' 

The  drawing  Datur  Hora  Quieti,  reproduced  as  an 
illustration  to  Rogers'  Poems,  may  be  instanced  as  one 
of  the  great  number  of  Turner's  works  that  justify  this 
comparison.  In  fact,  it  should  be  said  that  the  com- 
parison ought  not  to  have  been  given  such  prominence 
unless  his  work  as  a  whole  justified  it.  But  we  need 
not  do  more  at  the  moment  than  take  this  single 
illustration.  The  drawing  is  only  a  small  one,  but 
the  impressiveness  of  Turner's  works  is  far  from  being 
dependent  on  their  size.  He  could  express  in  inches 
a  sense  of  space  and  grandeur  that  artists  of  no  mean 
capacity  could  not  give  with  feet  of  canvas  to  work 
upon.  The  means  by  which  he  did  this  will  be 
considered  later.  Just  now  it  is  enough  for  us  to 
observe  that  this  little  drawing  gives  us  rather  a  vision 
than  a  vista  ;  and  this  not  merely  in  the  purely  land- 
scape elements,  in  the  stretching  away  of  hill  and  vale 
and  gleaming  river  to  the  faint,  far-off  horizon,  with 
the  majesty  above  them  of  the  setting  sun  among  the 
myriad  cloudlets  that  owe  to  him  their  splendour  of 
varied  colour,  but  also  in  the  visible  evidences  of  man's 
life  and  activity.  The  ruined  castle  on  the  hill  calls 
up  the  thought  of  the  coming  and  going  of  the 
generations  of  men.  How  many  feet  have  trod  the 


8  TURNER 

bridge,  where  in  earlier  days  would  be  a  ford,  the  castle 
guarding  its  passage  ?  The  church  spire  reminds  us 
that  man  has  ever  been  a  worshipper,  however  various 
may  have  been  the  gods  he  has  worshipped.  The 
boats  by  the  river-bank  bid  us  think  of  commerce 
between  city  and  city,  between  country  and  country, 
between  continent  and  continent,  and  of  adventure  and 
discovery.  The  windmill  tells  of  the  gathering  in  and 
use  of  harvest ;  and,  lastly,  we  have  one  pulse-beat  of 
this  incalculable  length  of  life,  the  close  of  the  single 
day,  the  ploughmen  going  homeward  with  their  horses, 
leaving  idle  till  the  morrow  the  implement  of  which 
the  invention  preceded  all  written  history ;  for,  once 
again,  the  night  is  coming  in  which  no  man  can  work, 
and  there  is  given  once  more  the  hour  of  rest  which  is 
both  a  fulfilment  and  a  promise. 

All  Turner's  work,  when  he  had  passed  through 
his  apprenticeship — his  many  apprenticeships,  one  ought 
rather  to  say — and  when  both  the  man  and  his  art  had 
matured,  was  wrought  in  a  mood  of  exaltation  that 
was  not  merely  aesthetic.  Can  it  be  said  that  there 
was  a  spiritual  element  in  his  art  ?  The  reader  may 
have  winced — or  smiled — when  I  said  that  perhaps 
the  thought  of  God  was  not  as  constant  with  Turner 
as  it  was  with  Watts.  But  whether  we  can  find  a 
name  for  it  or  not,  there  was  a  thought,  that  quickened 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  9 

ever  into  emotion,  other  than  the  mere  sensuous  feeling 
for  visible  beauty.  Men  have  ever  been  worshippers, 
we  have  just  said,  however  various  have  been  the 
objects  of  their  worship.  Again  and  again  Turner 
shows  in  his  work  that  he  recognised  this  enduring 
human  trait.  Did  he  worship,  and  if  so,  what  ?  The 
cynic  may  answer  that  he  worshipped  fame,  and  money 
as  an  earnest  of  fame.  Those  who  do  not  mistake  a 
man's  weakness  for  his  strength  will  look  to  his  life- 
work,  and  some  of  them  may  say  that  Turner 
worshipped  the  sun,  that  the  worship  grew  upon  him 
with  growing  years,  till  at  last  he  sacrificed  everything 
to  the  endeavour  through  his  art  to  pay  tribute  to  the 
splendour  of  the  sunlight.  It  is  surely  best  not  to 
limit  and  define.  Who  would  trust  any  man's  power 
so  to  sound  the  depths  of  his  own  nature,  so  to  explore 
and  map  them  out,  as  to  be  able  to  set  forth  in  formal 
terms  that  which  he  truly  worships,  that  in  which,  the 
mighty  complex  in  which,  he  lives  and  moves  and  has 
his  being  ?  Here,  at  the  moment,  all  we  need  is  to 
affirm  that  Turner,  the  artist,  was  a  worshipper,  that  he 
bowed  down  before,  and  therefore  exalted  himself  in 
the  contemplation  of,  the  invisible  within  the  visible. 
This  is  why  there  is  in  his  work  a  beauty  that  nature 
cannot  show  ;  a  beauty,  one  must  hasten  to  say,  not 
surpassing,  but  different  from  that  of  nature,  no 


io  TURNER 

mere  imitation  of  what  nature  sets  before  us,  but,  like 
music,  a  new  creation. 

This  is  true  of  all  art,  and  of  every  artist,  I  may  be 
told.  The  reply  is,  yes,  and  pre-eminently  true  of 
Turner.  Is  not  every  artist,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, a  Platonist,  seeking  everywhere  the  types 
of  which  visible  things  are  but  the  imperfect  forms  ? 
Could  Plato  have  seen  a  Turner  landscape  would  he 
not  at  once  have  given  to  painting  a  place  in  his 
Republic  ?  Art  is  infinitely  more  than  imitation.  It 
begins,  indeed,  with  departure  from  imitation  ;  so  that 
truth  to  nature,  in  the  sense  of  a  record,  as  exact 
as  possible,  of  visible  things,  is  precisely  the  wrong 
criterion  by  which  to  judge  it.  1  have  been  trying  to 
keep  away  from  it,  have  substituted  for  it  just  now 
poor  words  of  my  own,  but  it  must  come  for  its  own 
sake  and  for  the  authority  it  bears.  The  artist,  to  be 
worthy  the  name,  must  make  to  shine 

The  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea, 

he  must  have 

The  consecration  and  the  poet's  dream. 

Here  I  can  see  myself  being  charged  with  empha- 
sising at  the  very  beginning  of  this  little  book  the 
*  literary '  element  in  Turner's  pictures.  Such  em- 
phasis I  at  once  admit,  but  take  objection  to  the 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  n 

epithet  'literary.'  Mr.  Cosmo  Monkhouse  describes 
Turner  as  '  the  great  composer  of  chromatic  harmonies 
in  forms  of  sea  and  sky,  hills  and  plains,  sunshine  and 
storm,  towns  and  shipping,  castles  and  cathedrals.' 
Some  of  the  forms  rarely  wanting  in  Turner's  works 
are  omitted  here,  though  named  elsewhere.  There 
is  no  mention  of  men,  women,  children  and  animals. 
The  final  significance  of  the  Datur  Hora  Quieti,  we 
have  seen,  depends  on  the  ploughmen  going  home 
from  their  day's  work.  And  if  we  interest  ourselves 
in  these  '  forms,'  as  well  as  in  the  chromatic  harmonies, 
are  we  confusing  art  with  literature  ? 

Let  us  answer  this  last  question  by  reference  to 
a  literary  counterpart  of  the  Datur  Hora  Quieti — the 
opening  verse  of  Gray's  '  Elegy.'  Here  we  have  the 
work  of  a  composer  of  verbal,  of  literary  harmonies. 
The  mere  sound  of  the  words  would  be  harmonious 
even  if  they  had  no  meaning.  How  often  one  reads 
aloud  or  recites  both  prose  and  verse  merely  for  the 
sake  of  the  beauty  of  sound !  This  is  one  purely 
literary  element  in  both  prose  and  poetry.  But 
beyond  this  there  is  the  meaning  of  the  words  ;  and 
the  choice  of  the  best  words  to  express  the  meaning 
is  another  literary  element.  But  still  there  is  the 
meaning.  Is  the  meaning  literature  ?  The  chief  value 
of  the  verse  we  are  considering  is  that  it  calls  up 


iz  TURNER 

sights  and  sounds  that  we  have  seen  and  heard  and 
that  stir  our  emotions.  The  words  are  idle  words 
unless  they  evoke  a  picture ;  they  would  be  meaning- 
less to  one  who  had  never  heard  the  evening  bell 
or  the  cattle  lowing  as  they  returned  to  the  farm  at 
milking-time  ;  or  who  had  never  seen — as  in  Turner's 
drawing — the  weary  ploughman  going  homewards  as 
the  darkness  settled  down.  These  things  could  be 
seen  and  heard,  and  the  emotion  evoked  by  them 
be  felt  without  any  translation  into  words.  That  is  to 
say,  literature  does  but  give  expression  to  what  exists 
independently  of  it.  Ruskin,  in  one  of  his  Oxford 
lectures,  half  regrets  that  we  cannot  use  such  a  word  as 
'  spiriture  '  or  '  animature '  to  denote  that  which  exists 
as  thought  or  feeling  before  literary  expression  is  given 
to  it,  and  to  a  large  part  of  which,  painting,  just  as 
well  as  literature,  and  often  better  than  literature,  can 
also  give  expression. 

The  spheres  of  literature  and  painting  in  this  respect 
are  not  identical,  they  do  not  exactly  coincide — in 
fact  they  are  very  far  from  coinciding — but  they  do 
overlap.  We  are  not  concerned  here  to  attempt  a 
delimitation  of  their  respective  spheres ;  but  only  to 
protest  against  painting  being  accused  of  trespassing  on 
the  domain  of  literature  whenever  it  does  not  content 
itself  with  creating  the  visible  harmonies  which  are 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  13 

the  counterpart  of  the  harmonies  of  sound  created  by 
literature. 

That  Turner  sought  to  express  through  painting 
such  things  as  Virgil  and  Ovid,  Scott,  Byron  and 
many  another  had  expressed  in  words  is  obvious  ;  and 
no  criticism  of  his  life-work  can  be  complete  that  does 
not  take  account  of  his  success  or  failure  in  this 
respect ;  and  the  success  or  failure  is  not  to  be 
measured  by  merely  quantitative  comparison.  Hamer- 
ton  says  that  all  the  meaning  in  the  Liber  Studiorum, 
which  was  the  subject  of  some  of  Ruskin's  most 
eloquent  passages,  could  be  packed  into  a  couple  of 
sonnets,  and  then  would  not  be  worth  much.  Here  is 
the  literary  fallacy  at  work.  We  do  not  want 
Turner's  glowing  art  turned  into  even  the  most  glow- 
ing of  words.  A  poem  translated  from  one  language 
into  another  loses  much  of  its  value ;  how  much 
greater  must  be  the  loss  involved  in  translation  from 
one  art  to  another !  Even  if  there  be  gain  there  is 
also  loss.  We  do  not  wish  to  break  the  Grecian 
urn  after  reading  Keats'  ode  to  it. 

To  one  of  the  best  known  of  his  imaginative 
Italian  landscapes,  Lake  Avernus,  Turner  gave  the 
sub-title  The  Golden  Bough.  Searching  the  picture 
for  an  explanation  of  it,  we  find  a  female  figure  hold- 
ing up  in  her  left  hand  a  bough  which  she  has 


14  TURNER 

evidently  cut  down  with  the  sickle  in  her  right  hand. 
I  can  well  recollect  the  time  when,  as  a  boy,  I  used  to 
look  at  the  engraving  of  this  picture  without  any 
knowledge  of  the  mythological  significance  of  this 
figure,  and  yet  was  vaguely  moved  by  it,  and  felt  that 
somehow  it  deepened  the  beauty  of  the  landscape. 
Even  then  it  had  an  emotional  value.  How  much 
greater  is  that  value  now  after  one  has  read  and  read 
again  Dr.  Frazer's  '  Golden  Bough,'  in  which  the  mean- 
ing of  the  figure  is  explained  with  such  fulness  of 
erudition.  Dr.  Frazer  gives  a  reproduction  of  this 
picture  as  a  frontispiece  to  his  book.  Would  he  have 
done  so  had  he  not  felt  that  the  picture  had  an 
emotional  value  that  no  verbal  poetry,  that  no  learned 
research,  could  supersede  ?  The  figure  bearing  the 
Golden  Bough,  the  other  figures  dancing  round  a  fire, 
the  others,  again,  seated  with  the  classical  vases  near 
them,  the  temples  overlooking  the  lake,  the  fragments 
of  masonry — all  these  are  not  to  be  dismissed  as 
1  literary '  intruders  in  the  landscape,  out  of  place  in  a 
painting  because  their  emotional  effect  upon  us  largely 
depends  upon  our  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the 
changing  beliefs  of  mankind  ;  nor  is  that  emotional 
effect  to  be  measured  by  estimating  the  amount  of  in- 
formation of  the  kind  we  get  from  books,  they  immedi- 
ately, by  our  merely  looking  at  them,  convey  to  us. 


ART,    LIFE   AND   NATURE  15 

With  mythological  interest  of  this  kind,  with 
historical  interest,  and  with  the  interest  we  derive 
from  scenes  of  everyday  life,  Turner's  work  is  replete. 
Writers  who  have  emphasised  these  elements  in  his 
works,  such  as  Ruskin  and  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke,  have 
been  called  subjective  critics,  presumably  because  they 
interest  themselves  in  the  subjects  of  the  pictures — is 
there  also  a  suggestion  that  they  read  into  Turner 
something  that  is  not  there,  but  only  exists  in  their 
inner  consciousness  ?  Turner,  however,  was  a  sub- 
jective painter,  in  the  sense  both  of  putting  in  his 
pictures  records  of  human  doings  that  he  had  ob- 
served, or  heard  or  read  about,  and  of  endeavouring 
to  express  through  his  art  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings 
with  regard  to  the  significance  of  human  life.  It  is 
open  to  a  critic  to  deal  only  with  the  pictorial  element 
in  Turner's  work,  with  that  which  corresponds  to  the 
purely  literary  element  in  prose  and  poetry,  and  to 
ignore  what  we  will  call  the  spiritual  element.  But  in 
so  doing  he  will  criticise,  not  Turner's  work,  not  the 
whole  of  what  the  artist  set  himself  to  do,  but  only  a 
part  of  it ;  and  often  the  pictorial  and  the  spiritual 
elements  are  so  completely  fused  that  neither  can  be 
adequately  appreciated  and  discussed  without  reference 
to  the  other.  The  subjective  critics  may  not  succeed 
in  exactly  interpreting  Turner's  meaning,  just  as 


i 6  TURNER 

hearers  may  misinterpret  preachers,  and  readers, 
poets  ;  but  they  may  be  trusted  to  correct  each  other  ; 
at  least  they  will  be  having  regard  to  the  artist's 
obvious  purpose ;  and,  after  all,  the  proper  function 
of  prophet,  poet  or  poet-painter  is  not  to  impose  his 
own  thought  upon  others  as  absolute  truth,  but  to 
make  his  individual,  and  therefore  fallible  contribution, 
to  the  thought  of  mankind.  Ruskin  may  have  read 
things  into  Turner ;  the  things  themselves  may  be 
none  the  worse  for  that.  We  owe  more  to  him  than 
to  those  who  have  read  nothing,  of  the  same  kind,  in 
Turner ;  even  though  he  have  at  times  misinterpreted 
his  author — we  shall  find  Turner  thus  describing  him- 
self— and  though  his  own  interpretations  of  life  be  not 
as  certainly  right  as  he  himself  was  inclined  to  think 
them. 

Cosmo  Monkhouse  speaks  of  Turner's  art  as  full 
of  feeling  for  his  fellow-creatures,  and  as  showing 
men  at  work  in  the  fields,  on  the  seas,  in  the  mines, 
in  the  battle,  bargaining  in  the  market,  and  carous- 
ing at  the  fair.  But  he  adds  that  the  note  of 
domesticity  is  wanting,  that  we  are  never  shown 
men  at  home,  and  he  thinks  that  this  is  attributable 
to  his  never  himself  having  experienced  the  charm 
of  home.  The  lack  of  this  note  in  Turner's  work, 
he  says,  is  one  of  the  principal  reasons  why  his 


ART,    LIFE   AND   NATURE  17 

art   has    never    been    truly    popular    in    home-lcving, 
domestic  England. 

I  have  talked  with  many  people  who  do  not  care 
for  Turner's  art,  but  I  have  never  once  heard  this 
reason  given  for  their  indifference  to  it,  or  active  dis- 
like of  it.  The  reasons  almost  unfailingly  given  are 
the  indistinctness,  the  lack  of  reality,  the  exaggeration 
amounting  to  positive  untruthfulness  in  his  works.  Nor 
does  one  hear  the  works  of  Constable,  Cox,  De  Wint, 
and  others  of  our  landscape  painters  praised  on  account 
of  the  incidents  of  home-life  given  in  them,  but  for 
their  naturalness,  for  their  reminding  people  of  what 
they  themselves  have  seen.  This,  however,  is,  after  all, 
not  very  far  away  from  what  Monkhouse  says.  It  is 
not  the  lack  of  homely  incident  in  Turner's  work  that 
makes  it  unpopular — there  is,  indeed,  not  a  little  of  it 
— but  the  lack  of  a  sense  of  the  homely,  familiar, 
natural  look  of  things.  The  story  of  the  lady  who 
said  to  Turner  that  she  never  saw  in  nature  such  skies 
as  he  put  in  his  pictures,  and  of  his  reply,  '  No,  ma'am, 
but  don't  you  wish  you  could  ? '  has  not  lost,  nor  is 
likely  for  long  enough  to  lose,  its  significance.  Am  I 
the  only  Turner  enthusiast  who  feels  it  at  times  a  relief 
to  turn  away  from  his  chromatic  harmonies  to  more 
simply  rendered  landscape  ?  One  feels  at  times,  with 
regard  to  Turner's  work,  somewhat  as  Dean  Hole 
c 


1 8  TURNER 

must  have  felt  when,  in  a  gorgeous  flower-garden,  he 
took  a  friend  by  the  arm  and  said,  '  Let  us  go  into  the 
kitchen-garden  and  cool  our  eyes  on  the  lettuces  ! ' 

But  can  we  not  turn  away  from  pictures  by  Turner 
that  are  stimulating  and  exciting  to  others  by  him  that  are 
perfectly  restful,  and  so  find  relief  without  going  to  other 
artists  ?  Ruskin  says,  in  *  The  Harbours  of  England,' 
that  nothing  is  so  perfectly  calm  as  Turner's  calmness, 
and  instances  the  drawing  of  Scarborough,  engraved  in 
that  work.  He  shows  that  the  effect  of  tranquillity  is 
obtained  by  elaborate  artifices  of  reflection  and  repetition, 
natural  forms  being  modified,  and  various  objects  being 
introduced,  for  the  especial  purpose.  '  Observe,'  he 
says,  '  the  anxious  doubling  of  every  object  by  a  visible 
echo  or  shadow  throughout  this  picture.'  He  tells  us 
further  that  'the  highest  art  is  full  of  these  little 
cunnings,  and  it  is  only  by  the  help  of  them  that  it  can 
succeed  in  at  all  equalling  the  force  of  the  natural  im- 
pression.' This  last  sentence  may  be  open  to  discussion ; 
but  it  is  enough  for  us  to  note  here  that  it  was  by  such 
elaborate  artistry  that  Turner  sought  to  record  the 
impressions  he  had  received  from  nature,  that  the 
artistry  is  felt  by  the  spectator — even  if  he  do  not  give 
detailed  account  of  it  himself,  such  as  Ruskin  gives  for 
his  benefit — with  the  result  that  he  says  he  never  saw 
anything  like  this,  nor,  he  is  sure,  did  Turner  himself. 


ART,   LIFE   AND    NATURE  19 

Does  not  this  really  mean — for  the  spectator  is  assuredly 
right — that  the  effect  produced  is  one  of  art,  not  of 
nature,  though  it  was  suggested  by  nature  ?  We  are 
right  in  calling  it  a  record  of  an  impression  received 
from  nature ;  but  the  terms  in  which  it  is  recorded  are 
not  natural  ones — it  is  not  a  record  of  observed  facts, 
either  of  form,  or  light,  or  colour.  Turner's  art  is  not 
merely  full  of  artifice,  it  abounds  in  rhetorical  eloquence 
— like  the  language  of  Ruskin,  who,  in  his  later  years, 
could  poke  fun  at  some  of  the  purple  passages  of 
'  Modern  Painters.'  W.  D.  Howells  says  that  the  only 
time  he  ever  doubted  the  existence  of  St.  Mark's  at 
Venice  was  when  he  read  Ruskin's  description  of  it  ! 
It  is  not  only  that  '  numerous  person,'  the  man  in  the 
street,  who  raises  objection  to  what  he  feels  to  be  an 
excess  of  art  in  Turner's  pictures.  Mr.  A.  C. 
Benson,  in  his  Life  of  Rossetti,  says  that  among  the 
papers  of  that  poet  and  painter  was  recorded  a  con- 
demnation of  Turner  by  Whistler  on  the  ground  that 
he  did  not  meet  either  the  simply  natural  or  the  decor- 
ative requirements  of  landscape  art  which  to  Whistler 
appeared  to  be  the  only  alternatives.  Is  not  this  really 
the  position  also  of  the  man  in  the  street,  who  is  quite 
willing  that  Turner  or  anyone  else  should  see  visions 
and  dream  dreams,  even  though  he  himself  is  incredu- 
lous of  the  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea,  but  is 


20  TURNER 

offended  because  the  names  of  places  that  he  knows  are 
given  to  pictures  that  bear  only  a  very  visionary  resem- 
blance to  such  places  ?  It  is  evident  that  Turner 
mingled  too  much  fact  with  his  dreams  for  Whistler's 
liking.  The  critics  of  Turner  who  called  forth 
Ruskin's  passionate,  youthful  defence  of  him  said 
that  Turner  was  not  truthful.  Ruskin  showed  how 
much  more  truth  there  was  in  his  works  than  in 
those  of  any  other  landscape  painter,  among  either 
his  predecessors  or  his  contemporaries.  The  fact 
remains  that  Turner  was  not  truthful ;  and  the  truth 
in  his  works  does  but  emphasise  their  lapse  from 
truth — to  put  the  matter  paradoxically.  They  would 
have  been  better,  from  the  point  of  view  of  Whistler, 
of  some  other  critics  and  of  the  man  in  the  street, 
if  they  had  lacked  the  truth  which,  with  such  copious 
reference  to  geology,  botany  and  meteorology,  Ruskin 
proved  them  to  possess. 

We  cannot  but  feel  that  in  not  a  few  of  Turner's 
works,  nature  has  been  subjected  to  very  formal 
design,  and  arrayed  in  very  obvious  colour-schemes, 
and  we  are  inclined  to  say  either  that  art  will  not  bear 
so  much  of  nature  or  that  nature  will  not  bear  so  much 
of  art.  Hamerton  says  that  Turner  was  never  enslaved 
to  nature.  But  should  he  not  either  have  served  her 
somewhat  more  faithfully,  or  have  more  fully  emanci- 


ART,    LIFE   AND    NATURE  21 

pated  himself  from  her  ?  Of  course,  the  objection 
that  is  here  admitted  is  felt  more  in  some  of  his  works 
than  in  others  ;  but  I  want  frankly  to  admit  that  it  can 
legitimately  be  taken,  in  order  to  say  at  once  that  those 
who  give  too  much  weight  to  it,  and  let  it  hinder  them 
from  attentive  study  of  Turner's  work,  suffer  an  incal- 
culable loss.  From  no  other  landscape  painter  is  there 
so  much  to  be  learned  about  nature  as  from  Turner,  nor 
has  any  other  landscape  painter  given  to  us  such 
wonderful  art. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  Turner  did  himself  every- 
thing that  had  been  done  by  all  other  painters  of  land- 
scape. Redgrave,  for  example,  in  'A  Century  of 
Painters  of  the  English  School,'  says,  '  Turner's  water- 
colour  paintings,  indeed,  epitomize  the  whole  mystery  of 
landscape  art.  Other  painters  have  arrived  at  excellence 
in  one  treatment  of  nature.  Thus  Cozens  in  grand  and 
solemn  effects  of  mountain  scenery  ;  Robson  in  simple 
breadth  and  masses  ;  De  Wint  in  tone  and  colour ; 
Glover  in  sun-gleams  thrown  across  the  picture,  and 
tipping  with  golden  light  the  hills  and  trees  ;  Cox  in 
his  breezy  freshness  ;  and  Barret  in  his  classical  com- 
positions, lighted  by  the  setting  sun.  These  were  men 
that  played  in  one  key,  often  making  the  rarest  melody. 
But  Turner's  art  compassed  all  they  did  collectively, 
and  more  than  equalled  each  in  his  own  way.'  In  one 


22  TURNER 

at  .least  of  the  instances  here  given — and  this  is  the 
only  one  that  for  our  immediate  purpose  we  need  to 
consider — Redgrave  is  assuredly  wrong  :  Turner  not 
only  did  not  more  than  equal,  he  never  so  much  as 
nearly  approached,  the  breezy  freshness  of  Cox  ;  and 
this  is  but  one  instance  of  a  general  limitation  in  his 
art ;  in  by  far  the  greater  portion  of  his  work  he  does 
not  make  us  feel  as  if  we  were  among  the  things  he 
paints  ;  we  are  merely  looking,  from  the  outside,  at 
representations  of  them.  Are  we  right  in  calling  this 
a  limitation,  or  is  the  feeling  of  reality  only  to  be 
sought  face  to  face  with  nature  herself,  art  having  quite 
another  function  ?  If  we  answer  this  question  by 
reference  to  what  art  has  done  and  is  doing,  we  shall 
decide  that  to  convey  the  feeling  of  reality  is  one 
function  of  art,  and  that  failure  to  convey  it  is  a  limita- 
tion in  the  art  of  Turner.  It  is  conveyed  in  the  art 
of  Constable,  Cox,  Millet,  Corot,  the  Impressionist 
School  of  Monet,  and  more  and  more  by  living 
painters  in  all  countries.  This  question  is  one  of  the 
very  greatest  importance,  with  reference  both  to  Turner's 
art  and  to  art  in  general ;  and  we  must  give  to  it  the  most 
careful  consideration. 

The  pleasure  we  derive  immediately  from  nature  does 
not  come  to  us  solely  through  the  sense  of  sight,  but 
through  hearing,  touch  and  smell  also.  It  is  rarely, 


ART,    LIFE   AND    NATURE  23 

perhaps,  that  a  picture  even  faintly  suggests  the  last- 
named  sense.  The  most  deceptively  realistic  painting 
of  flowers  would  hardly  do  it ;  but  I  think  the  salty 
freshness  of  the  sea  air  is  not  unfrequently  recalled — 
this,  however,  is  a  question  of  individual  experience. 
Sounds,  such  as  those  of  breaking  waves  and  running 
water,  of  thunder  and  of  the  wind,  of  human  and 
animal  noises,  of  the  traffic  of  streets,  are  constantly 
suggested  by  pictures  ;  and  more  regularly  still  is  the 
sense  of  touch  awakened.  The  tread  of  the  feet  on 
rock,  soil,  grass,  carpeted  room  or  what  else,  wind, 
rain  or  sun  on  the  face,  the  feeling  to  the  hand  of  the 
hardness  or  softness,  roughness  or  smoothness,  of  all 
the  varied  texture  of  different  objects — one  need  not 
seek  to  enumerate  in  how  many  ways  pictures  can  call 
up  the  sense  of  touch.  When  Fuseli,  going  to  see 
Constable's  pictures  in  his  studio,  asked  Stroulger,  the 
Academy  porter,  for  his  umbrella,  this  meant,  one  thinks, 
not  merely  that  he  knew  he  would  see  a  picture  of 
a  shower,  but  that  he  would  feel  as  if  the  rain  would 
wet  him. 

Mr.  Bernhard  Berenson  sums  up  the  pleasure  we 
take  in  actual  landscape  as  '  only  to  a  limited  extent  an 
affair  of  the  eye,  and  to  a  great  extent  one  of  unusually 
intense  well-being' ;  and  says  that  'the  painter's  problem, 
therefore,  is  not  merely  to  render  the  tactile  value 


24  TURNER 

of  the  visible  objects,  but  to  convey,  more  rapidly  and 
unfailingly  than  nature  would  do,  the  consciousness  of  an 
unusually  intense  degree  of  well-being.'  This  means, 
he  says,  'the  communication  by  means  purely  visual 
of  feelings  occasioned  by  sensations  non-visual,'  and  he 
thinks  that  art  is  only  at  the  beginning  of  systematic 
success  in  this  endeavour,  but  that  such  success  is 
at  hand  and  that '  perhaps  we  are  already  at  the  dawn 
of  an  art  which  will  have  to  what  has  hitherto  been 
called  landscape  the  relation  of  our  music  to  the  music 
of  the  Greeks  or  of  the  Middle  Ages.' 

It  is  in  his  book  on  the  Florentine  Painters  of  the 
Renaissance  that  Mr.  Berenson  thus  discusses  the 
function  of  landscape  painting,  with  particular  reference 
to  the  treatment  of  landscape  in  the  works  of  Ver- 
rocchio  ;  and  where  we  are  to  look  for  the  dawn 
of  a  fuller  art  of  landscape  we  learn  when  he  says  that 
;' Verrocchio  was,  among  Florentines  at  least,  the  first 
to  feel  that  a  faithful  reproduction  of  the  contours 
is  not  landscape,  that  the  painting  of  nature  is  an 
art  distinct  from  the  painting  of  the  figure.  He 
scarcely  knew  where  the  difference  lay,  but  felt  that 
light  and  atmosphere  play  an  entirely  different  part  in 
each,  and  that  in  landscape  these  have  at  least  as  much 
importance  as  tactile  values.  A  vision  of  plein  air, 
vague  I  must  grant,  seems  to  have  hovered  before 


ART,   LIFE   AND    NATURE  25 

him.'  That  is  to  say,  the  promise  of  a  fuller  art  lies 
in  what  has  been  done  by,  and  under  the  inspiration  of, 
the  French  Impressionist  painters.  Elsewhere,  in 
'  The  Central  Italian  Painters  of  the  Renaissance,'  Mr. 
Berenson  refers  definitely  to  two  of  the  Impressionists, 
praising  Cezanne  for  his  exquisite  modelling  of  the 
sky,  and  Monet  for  communicating  the  very  pulse-beat 
of  the  sun's  warmth  over  fields  and  trees,  but  alleging 
that  they  lack  the  feeling  for  space,  '  the  bone  and 
marrow  of  the  art  of  landscape,'  of  which  Poussin, 
Claude  and  Turner  had  so  much  that,  though  inferior 
in  other  respects  to  some  of  the  painters  of  our  own 
day,  they  are  still  the  greatest  European  landscape 
painters. 

The  greatest  contribution  to  art  made  by  the  Im- 
pressionist painters  is  that  they  are  the  first  who  have 
systematically,  of  set  purpose,  made  us  feel  that  we 
could  breathe  in  their  pictures.  Of  course  this  feeling 
is  aroused  occasionally  and  to  a  limited  extent  in  the 
works  of  earlier  painters,  just  as  there  was  brotherly 
love  in  the  world  before  Christianity  declared  it  to  be 
the  very  soul  of  religion.  Burne-Jones,  who  thought 
but  little  of  the  Impressionists,  admitted  that  they  gave 
atmosphere,  and  atmosphere  means  breathing-space ; 
but  he  said  that  this  did  not  amount  to  much.  It 
counts  for  very  much  indeed  in  the  sense  of  general 


26  TURNER 

well-being.  The  breathing  of  pure  air  is  not  only  one 
of  the  cheapest — unless  made  artificially  dear  by  com- 
petitive manufacture  and  commerce — but  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  pleasures  of  life  to  a  healthy  individual. 
To  most  people  it  is  probably  a  sub-conscious  pleasure. 
Some  people  enjoy  it  consciously,  and  give  it  abundant 
exercise,  with  incalculable  gain  to  health  and  happi- 
ness. And  an  art  that  reflects  this  pleasure  inevitably 
gives  pleasure  to  those  who  are  alive  to  it. 

It  is  instructive  for  our  present  purpose  to  refer 
to  what  Ruskin  says  in  « Modern  Painters '  about  the 
landscapes  of  David  Cox.  He  refuses  to  be  offended 
by  Cox's  loose  and  blotted  handling,  though  elsewhere 
he  pours  contempt  on  the  '  modern  blottesque '  style 
of  tree  drawing.  He  would  not  have  Cox's  trees 
drawn  better  than  they  are ;  yet  from  Ruskin's  main 
point  of  view  they  are  badly  enough  drawn,  lacking,  as 
they  do,  individuality  of  form.  No  one  but  Cox,  he 
says,  has  so  fully  recorded  the  looseness,  coolness  and 
moisture  of  herbage,  the  rustling,  crumpled  freshness 
of  broad-leaved  weeds,  the  play  of  pleasant  light  across 
deep-heathered  moor  or  plashing  sand,  th"  melting 
of  fragments  of  white  mist  into  the  dropping  blue 
above.  He  says  further  that  what  is  accidental  in 
Cox's  methods  of  reaching  his  ends  answers  gracefully 
to  what  is  accidental  in  nature.  By  the  accidental  in 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  27 

nature  we  may  understand  Ruskin  to  mean  the  play 
of  light  and  shade  that  disguises  form  ;  since  form,  to 
him,  was  the  all-important  thing.  Perhaps  to  Cox — 
certainly  to  the  Impressionists — what  to  Ruskin  was 
accidental  was  the  essential  thing.  The  disguising 
of  form  is  as  much  a  result  of  light  and  atmosphere  as 
the  display  of  it.  A  full  sense  of  the  presence  of  light 
and  atmosphere  can  only  be  rendered  in  art  by  the 
partial  disguise  of  form  ;  art,  in  this,  following  nature ; 
and  much  that  Ruskin  praises  in  Cox's  paintings,  which 
to  him  is  only  a  record  broken  by  accidents,  resolves 
itself  really  into  such  a  subtle,  illusive  rendering  of  light 
and  air  that  we  feel  we  could  live  and  breathe  in  his 
pictures ;  that  is  to  say,  Cox,  in  Mr.  Berenson's 
phrase,  communicates  by  means  purely  visual  feelings 
occasioned  by  sensations  non-visual. 

In  '  Modern  Painters  '  Ruskin,  after  giving  moderate 
praise  to  Constable,  handled  him  severely,  because 
Leslie  had  brought  him  forward  as  a  great  artist,  com- 
parable in  some  sort  to  Turner.  His  reputation  is 
said  to  have  been  'most  mischievous,  in  giving  coun- 
tenance to  the  blotting  and  blundering  of  Modernism.' 
Constable,  we  are  told,  is  a  bad  painter,  giving  a  cheap 
deceptive  resemblance  to  nature.  He  '  perceives  in  a 
landscape  that  the  grass  is  wet,  the  meadows  flat,  and 
the  boughs  shady  ;  that  is  to  say,  about  as  much  as,  I 


28  TURNER 

suppose,  might  in  general  be  apprehended,  between 
them,  by  an  intelligent  fawn  and  a  skylark.'  On  the 
other  hand,  *  Turner  perceives  at  a  glance  the  whole 
sum  of  visible  truth  open  to  human  intelligence.'  He 
is  the  good  painter  who  '  gives  the  precious  non- 
deceptive  resemblance.'  These  two  classes  of  truth, 
the  cheaply  deceptive  and  the  precious  non-deceptive, 
cannot  be  given,  we  are  told,  together ;  choice  must 
be  made  between  them. 

We  can  often  appeal  from  one  Ruskin  to  another. 
The  Ruskin  condemning  Constable  is  not  the  one  that 
praises  Cox  ;  and  the  Ruskin  of  over  thirty  years 
after  the  first  volume  of  *  Modern  Painters '  was 
written,  could  praise  a  picture  by  Mr.  H.  W.  B.  Davis 
'  which  in  last  year's  Academy  carried  us  out,  at  the 
end  of  the  first  room,  into  sudden  solitude  among  the 
hills.'  What  is  this  but  deception — undeceitful  de- 
ception ?  And  such  pictures  as  this  he  traced  to  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's  Strayed  Sheep,  of 
which  he  says  in  the  same  place — the  lecture  on 
Rossetti  and  Holman  Hunt  in  *  The  Art  of  England ' 
— '  it  showed  to  us,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
art,  the  absolutely  faithful  balances  of  colour  and  shade 
by  which  actual  sunshine  might  be  transposed  into  a 
key  in  which  the  harmonies  possible  with  material 
pigments  should  yet  produce  the  same  impressions 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  29 

upon  the  mind  which  were  caused  by  the  light  itself.' 
He  particularly  mentions  the  *  natural  green  and 
tufted  gold  of  the  herbage '  in  this  picture,  and  says 
that  he  could  not  in  any  articulate  manner  explain 
*  what  a  deep  element  of  life,  for  me,  is  in  the  sight 
merely  of  pure  sunshine  on  a  bank  of  living  grass.' 
This  is  different  in  wording  only  from  what  Mr. 
Berenson  has  been  quoted  as  saying  of  Monet, 
that  he  communicates  *  the  very  pulse-beat  of  the 
sun's  warmth  over  fields  and  trees.'  And  now  we 
can  appeal  to  this  later  Ruskin  to  fix  for  us  the 
limitation,  in  this  respect,  of  Turner's  art,  for  he 
says,  '  all  previous  work  whatever  had  been  either 
subdued  into  narrow  truth,  or  only  by  convention 
suggestive  of  the  greater.  Claude's  sunshine  is  colour- 
less,— only  the  golden  haze  of  a  quiet  afternoon  ; — 
so  also  that  of  Cuyp  :  Turner's,  so  bold  in  con- 
ventionalism that  it  is  credible  to  few  of  you,  and 
offensive  to  many.' 

A  brief  reference  to  the  course  of  landscape  paint- 
ing after  Constable  and  Turner,  to  the  progress  that 
has  led  up  to  the  Impressionist  movement,  and  the 
developments  now  succeeding  it  and  in  part  made 
possible  by  it,  will  help  us  further  to  realise  what 
was  Turner's  contribution  to  art.  Constable's  imme- 
diate influence  was  greater  in  France  than  in  his  own 


30  TURNER 

country.  The  exhibition  of  pictures  by  him  in  the 
Paris  Salon,  during  his  own  lifetime,  stimulated  the 
French  landscape  painters  to  greater  freshness  and 
naturalism ;  and  the  indebtedness  of  the  Barbizon 
school  to  him  is  freely  admitted  across  the  Channel. 
The  forceful  realism  of  Courbet,  the  broad,  simple 
realism  of  Millet,  and  the  tender,  poetic  realism  of 
Corot,  were  immediately  followed  by  that  of  such  men 
as  Boudin,  Jongkind,  and  Lepine,  which  again  and  again 
reminds  us  of  the  water-colour  drawings  of  David  Cox. 
I  have  just  put  side  by  side  a  sea-piece  by  Cox  and  one 
by  Boudin.  A  casual  glance  would  suggest  that  they 
were  the  work  of  the  same  artist ;  but  it  is  soon  felt 
that  there  is  more  atmospheric  truth  in  the  Boudin 
than  in  the  Cox  ;  one  could  breathe  more  freely  in 
the  former  than  in  the  latter.  Then  came  Monet  and 
Pissarro,  both  of  whom  were  accustomed  to  paint  in 
the  open  air.  In  1871,  during  the  Franco-German 
War,  they  were  fellow-exiles  in  England,  where  they 
painted  on  the  Thames  and  in  the  London  suburbs, 
and  studied  carefully  the  works  of  Constable  and 
Turner.  French  landscape  had  already  learned  what 
the  former  had  to  teach.  But  what  would  these 
open-air  painters,  endeavouring,  as  they  already  were, 
to  paint  light  and  air,  have  to  do  with  Turner  ?  It 
would  be  chiefly  his  oil  paintings  that  they  would 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  31 

study,  we  may  conclude.  There  would  be  little  to 
their  purpose  in  the  heavy,  sombre  earlier  paintings. 
Much  in  the  Italy  series  would  interest  them ;  but 
among  those  to  which  they  would  go  again  and  again 
would  assuredly  be  Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus,  The 
Fighting  Temeraire  and  Rain,  Steam  and  Speed;  and 
the  last-named  would  probably  be  the  one  from  which 
they  would  have  most  to  learn;  for  it  is  in  the  very 
forefront  of  the  pictures  by  Turner  in  which  there  is 
the  minimum  of  conventionalism  in  both  design  and 
colour  ;  in  which  one  can  really  breathe  freely,  because 
everything  has  been  subordinated  to  the  endeavour  so 
to  represent  misty,  rainy  atmosphere,  fleeting  gleams 
of  light  and  swift  movement,  that  we  have  the  feeling 
of  being  within  the  picture,  in  the  rain,  and  that  the 
engine,  with  its  burden  of  carriages,  before  which  the 
hare  is  fleeing  for  its  life,  will  soon  thunder  past  us. 
In  Ruskin's  phraseology,  the  material  pigments  pro- 
duce the  same  impressions  upon  the  mind  which  would 
be  caused  by  the  scene  itself.  Alas !  Unless  the  in- 
dexer  be  at  fault,  there  is  in  '  Modern  Painters  '  not  so 
much  as  a  passing  reference  to  this  picture ! 

Monet  and  Pissarro,  after  painting  for  a  time  in  our 
English  climate,  where  atmospheric  effect  counts  for 
so  much,  and  after  studying  such  pictures  as  this  and 
others,  painted  by  men  who  were  native  to  that 


32  TURNER 

climate,  went  back  to  France,  there  to  paint  direct 
from  nature,  and  to  develop  a  technique  that  enabled 
them  to  render  effects  of  light  and  atmosphere  with  a 
truth  of  impression  that  none  before  them  had 
approached.  They  carried  further — one  avoids  saying 
completed — what  Turner  in  his  last  years  had  begun, 
when  he  made  the  endeavour  to  render  sunlight 
illusively  almost  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  his  art. 

In  one  particular  Impressionism  is  widely  different 
from  the  art  of  Turner.  Its  colour  is  natural ; 
Turner's  colour  was  conventional  to  the  last.  Work- 
ing direct  from  nature,  the  Impressionists  have  re- 
corded not  the  exact,  unrelated  colour  of  each 
individual  object,  which  Holman  Hunt  tended  to  do, 
working  up  his  picture  bit  by  bit,  but  the  natural 
colours  as  they  modify  each  other  by  juxtaposition. 
Accurate  observation  of  this  kind  was  quite  foreign  to 
Turner's  art.  His  colour  was  not  descriptive  of 
nature,  it  was  visible  music  for  which  nature  pro- 
vided only  the  suggestion.  The  Impressionists,  one 
should  say,  have  not  been  content  with  a  mere  record, 
they  have  selected,  harmonised,  composed ;  but  record 
is  at  the  base  of  their  work.  It  is  often  difficult  to 
realise,  when  looking  at  Turner's  sketches  in  colour, 
that  all  he  did  upon  the  spot  was  to  make  outlines  and 
notes  in  pencil,  and  that  the  colour  was  added  after- 


ART,   LIFE   AND   NATURE  33 

wards.  They  look  like  memoranda  rapidly  made 
with  the  scene  or  effect  visible  to  the  artist.  The 
colour  is  clearly  conventional ;  but,  if  we  had  no 
knowledge  to  the  contrary,  we  should  take  it  to  be 
merely  a  convention  into  which  the  artist  uncon- 
sciously fell  even  when  working  from  nature.  There 
is  no  question,  however,  that  this  was  not  the  case. 
His  finished  drawings,  done  from  the  sketches  after  a 
lapse  of  time,  are  still  more  elaborately  conventional, 
and  have  lost  entirely  the  freshness,  the  sense  of 
reality,  the  '  accidental '  quality,  of  the  sketches. 
They  have  gained  in  elaboration  of  form  and  colour- 
music,  while  they  still  give  us  an  often  wonderful  sense 
of  light,  of  vast  spaciousness,  of  vistas  stretching  away 
into  the  far  distance.  Their  power  impresses  us,  or 
their  loveliness  charms  us.  Their  colour  thrills  us, 
not  merely  as  if  it  were  music,  but  because  it  is 
music.  Their  masterly  design  gives  to  us  a  satisfying 
sense  of  unity,  of  completeness ;  they  are  visions ; 
such,  we  feel,  are  nature,  life,  the  universe,  could  we 
but  see  the  whole. 

Another  difficulty  that  many  people  feel  with  regard 
to  Turner's  work  should  be  mentioned  here — his 
exaggerations.  He  is  no  more  literally  true  to  nature 
in  form  than  in  colour.  He  exaggerates  the  steepness 
and  height  of  mountains,  the  size  of  buildings,  the 
D 


34  TURNER 

straining  of  masts  in  the  wind,  and  much  else.  Here 
the  answer  has  to  be  that  it  is  only  by  such  exaggera- 
tion— emphasis  might  sometimes  be  the  better  word — 
that  the  artist,  with  a  tiny  area  of  paper  or  canvas  at 
his  disposal,  with  the  impossibility  of  including  all  that 
the  eye  can  see  as  it  ranges  over  the  actual  scene,  able 
only  to  hint  at  atmosphere  and  distance,  by  which  we 
instinctively  gauge  the  height  of  objects,  and  to 
suggest,  not  to  give,  movement,  can  make  any 
approach  to  impressing  us  as  we  are  impressed  by 
nature  herself.  The  artist  would  therefore  be  entitled 
to  a  certain  exaggeration  were  his  function  only  thus 
to  impress  us ;  and  complaint  on  this  score,  even  by 
those  who  ask  from  art  nothing  more  than  record  of 
how  nature  looks  to  us,  merely  shows  lack  of  know- 
ledge of  the  terms  upon  which  alone  art  can  accom- 
plish this  limited  aim.  If,  however,  we  grant  that  art 
has  ends  of  its  own  to  serve,  then  complaint,  so  long 
as  the  exaggeration  serves  those  ends,  is  out  of  the 
question.  We  might  as  well  object  to  chairs  and 
tables  because  nature  has  not  provided  them,  and  we 
have  to  cut  down  trees  to  make  them. 

What  has  been  said  here  about  all  these  questions 
makes  no  pretence  to  be  an  exhaustive  study  of  them. 
Nor  is  it  supposed  that  no  reader  will  remain  uncon- 
vinced by  the  arguments  adopted.  But  such  discussion 


ART,XLIFE   AND    NATURE  35 

is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  the  study  of  Turner's  art. 
It  will  suffice  if  it  enable  the  reader  to  approach 
Turner  knowing  what  he  has  to  expect.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  I  have  let  this  discussion  precede  even  an 
account  of  Turner's  life  and  of  his  development  as  an 
artist,  which  is  given  in  the  following  chapter.  The 
significance  of  the  particulars  there  set  forth  will, 
I  think,  be  more  easily  grasped,  with  a  general  notion 
of  the  relation  of  his  art  to  life  and  nature  already  in 
mind. 


II 
LIFE  AND   LIFE-WORK 

THE  date  of  Turner's  birth  is  believed  to  have  been 
the  23rd  of  April,  1775  ;  though  there  is  no  really 
trustworthy  evidence  that  this  was  actually  the  day. 
What  is  certain  is  that  he  was  baptized  three  weeks 
after  this  date.  The  23rd  of  April  is  St.  George's 
day,  and  also,  traditionally,  Shakespeare's  birthday  ; 
and  the  coincidence  has  been  commented  on  as  such 
coincidences  often  are.  Ruskin  compares  Turner, 
opening  out  to  us  the  aspects  of  nature,  with  Francis 
Bacon  revealing  to  us  the  laws  of  nature,  and  Shake- 
speare revealing  those  of  human  nature.  To  make 
things  complete,  Bacon  ought  to  have  been  born  on  the 
same  date ;  but,  unfortunately,  he  made  the  mistake  of 
being  born  on  the  2  2nd  of  January.  Happily  it  is  not 
possible  to  suggest  that  Turner  wrote  Shakespeare's 
plays,  or  that  Shakespeare  painted  Turner's  pictures — 
unless,  indeed,  we  suppose  Turner  to  be  a  reincarnation 
of  Shakespeare  !  One  parallel  between  the  two  may 
36 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  37 

usefully  ,be  drawn.  Shakespeare  came  into  the  world 
when  the  genius  of  the  nation  was  ready  to  find 
expression  in  dramatic  art ;  and  Turner  when  the 
time  was  ripe  for  the  rise  of  a  school  of  landscape 
art  that  can  without  exaggeration  be  called  national. 
Wilson,  Gainsborough,  and  painters  of  lesser  name  had 
shown  the  way.  Paul  Sandby,  the  father  of  water-colour 
art,  was  their  younger  contemporary.  John  Cozens,  to 
whom  in  this  branch  of  art  Turner  admitted  his  great 
indebtedness,  was  born  in  1752.  Thomas  Girtin,  of 
whom  as  a  landscape  painter  in  water-colour  Turner 
thought  so  much  as  to  say  that  had  he  not  died  young, 
he  himself  would  have  starved,  was  born  in  1775. 
Constable  came  but  one  year  later  than  Turner. 
John  Crome,  the  founder  of  the  Norwich  School,  was 
born  earlier  than  these  three,  in  1768.  David  Cox 
and  Samuel  Prout  came  in  1783  ;  De  Wint  in  1784  ; 
Copley  Fielding  three  years,  and  Robson  four  years, 
later.  These  are  but  some  of  the  chief  of  a  numerous 
company  of  English  landscape  painters  who  were 
Turner's  younger  or  older  contemporaries.  There  is 
nothing  that  we  know  of  in  his  ancestry  and  parentage 
to  account  for  his  genius  ;  but,  granted  the  genius,  he 
could  not  have  come  into  the  world  at  a  time  more 
propitious  for  its  full  flowering  and  glorious  display. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  a  taint  of  insanity  in  his 


38  TURNER 

mother  became  genius  in  him.  If  we  are  to  think, 
thus,  we  must  look  for  a  similar  taint  in  the  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon  families,  and  many  others  ;  and  we  who 
have  not  genius  must  lament  that  our  mothers  were 
sane.  Doubtless  everything  has  its  explanation, 
including  the  genius  of  Turner.  All  we  can  do, 
however,  in  his  case,  is  to  say  that  his  genius  is  less 
explicable  by  us  than  are  now  the  varying  courses 
of  the  wind. 

Joseph  Mallord  William  were  the  Christian  names 
chosen  for  him  by  his  parents.  They  were  people  of 
humble  circumstances ;  his  father  being  a  barber, 
carrying  on  business  at  No.  26  Maiden  Lane,  in  the 
parish  of  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden,  in  which  house 
the  future  painter  was  born.  A  barber  meets  and  talks 
with  people  who,  in  diverse  ways,  move  in,  and  are 
conversant  with,  the  great  world  ;  and  the  very  occupa- 
tion of  Turner's  father  may  have  made  it  possible  for 
him  to  entertain  a  high  ambition  for  his  son,  when  once 
his  genius  had  begun  to  make  itself  evident.  The 
neighbourhood  of  Maiden  Lane  was  at  that  time  quite 
an  artists'  quarter  ;  and  Stothard,  the  painter,  was  one 
of  the  barber's  customers.  There  might  well  be  no 
paternal  objection  in  this  case  to  a  boy's  developing  an 
evident  faculty  for  drawing,  such  as  so  often  has  had 
to  be  overcome  by  the  sons  of  men  of  greater  wealth 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  39 

and  higher  position.  Indeed,  it  is  clear  that  this  was 
so  ;  for  the  elder  Turner  used  proudly  to  declare  that 
his  son  was  going  to  be  an  artist. 

The  father  appears  to  have  been  cheery  and  chatty. 
His  son  always  showed  sincere  affection  for  him. 
The  mother's  affliction  must  have  robbed  the  home  of 
much  of  the  best  that  the  word  home  implies.  But 
that  Turner  regularly  spoke  of  his  father  as  '  Dad,' 
suggests  that  the  essentials  of  home  were  not  wholly 
wanting.  Probably  Turner  would  not  have  been  *  at 
home  '  in  a  conventionally  orderly  household. 

Turner's  earliest  attempts  at  art  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  more  remarkable  than  those  of  many  a  child  who 
has  not  in  later  years  proved  to  be  a  genius.  Not 
everyone  who  bites  his  bread  and  butter  into  the  shapes 
of  animals,  or  turns  wall-paper  patterns  into  faces,  is 
destined  to  become  a  famous  sculptor  or  painter. 
Turner's  first  recorded  work  of  art  had  a  tea-tray  for 
canvas,  spilt  milk  for  pigment,  and  his  finger  for  a 
brush.  The  copying  of  a  coat-of-arms  that  he  saw  at 
the  house  of  one  of  his  father's  customers  seems  to  have 
influenced  the  determination  of  a  career  for  him  ;  and 
the  persistence  and  growth  of  his  fondness  for  drawing 
clearly  showed  the  way  he  was  to  go. 

That  the  greatest  of  imaginative  landscape  painters 
should  be  born  and  spend  his  early  years  in  Maiden 


40  TURNER 

Lane,  Covent  Garden,  has  often  been  referred  to  as  if 
this  were  one  of  the  cases  in  which  what  would  not 
have  been  expected  beforehand  had  happened  never- 
theless. Let  us  not  forget  that  the  river  and  its 
shipping,  with  their  inexhaustible  interest  for  a  boy,  were 
close  at  hand.  So  were  the  parks,  which  certainly  must 
not  be  left  out  of  account  when  we  are  considering  what 
might  stimulate  the  child's  powers  of  observation  ;  and 
the  open  country  was  then  within  easy  walking  distance. 
Also,  he  was  by  no  means  confined  to  the  city.  At 
least  as  early  as  at  the  age  of  nine  he  had  seen  the  sea  ; 
for  there  exists  a  drawing  of  Margate  Church  made  by 
him  at  that  age.  He  had  an  uncle  at  New  Brentford, 
and  was  sent  to  school  there  that  he  might  have  the 
benefit  of  country  air.  Early  in  life,  therefore,  he 
knew  town,  country,  river  and  sea.  The  things 
with  which  he  was  most  familiar  in  early  years  never 
lost  their  hold  upon  him  ;  indeed,  they  profoundly 
influenced  his  art.  Witness  his  unfailing  interest  in 
rivers  and  bridges  and  shipping  ;  if  a  town  he  visited 
had  a  river  flowing  through  it,  he  evidently  speedily 
made  his  way  to  its  side.  Ruskin  traces  *o  his  life  in 
London  his  fondness  for  introducing  a  large  number  of 
figures  into  his  pictures.  We  certainly  feel  oftener  in 
the  case  of  Turner  than  of  any  other  painter  that  we 
should  get  unpleasantly  jostled  if  we  could  step  into  the 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  41 

busy  scenes  he  has  pictured.  It  is  significant  that  he 
never  made  his  home  anywhere  but  in  London  or  its 
immediate  vicinity.  Hamerton  notes  this  in  connexion 
with  the  observation  already  quoted,  which  Turner's 
life-work  abundantly  justifies,  that  his  art  faculty  was 
too  strong  for  him  ever  to  be  enslaved  to  nature  :  that 
his  mind  had  never  been  overwhelmed  by  nature  to  the 
point  of  sacrificing  its  human  liberty  and  individuality. 
His  early  years  were,  in  fact,  a  forecast  of  what  his 
after  years  were  to  be  :  life  in  London  with  frequent 
visits  to — we  may  say — the  greater  world  outside  the 
world  of  London  ;  and  always  early  in  life  and  all 
through  life,  whether  he  was  in  the  one  world  or  the 
other,  he  was  busy  drawing  and  painting.  While  at 
school  at  New  Brentford,  he  drew  and  drew  and  drew. 
Trees,  flowers,  animals,  birds,  poultry,  were  wonderful 
new  things  to  him  ;  they  must  be  drawn  ;  and  drawn 
they  were,  while  his  delighted  schoolfellows  did  his 
lessons  for  him !  To  see — as  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  saw — and 
to  put  down — in  his  own  way — what  he  saw,  was  the 
overmastering  passion  of  his  life  ;  and  it  prevented  him 
from  acquiring  even  what  would  ordinarily  be  con- 
sidered the  minimum  of  the  kind  of  knowledge  that  is 
imparted  by  schoolmasters.  His  father  taught  him  to 
read.  He  was  at  school  for  a  few  months  at  New 
Brentford  when  he  was  ten  or  eleven  years  old,  and 


42  TURNER 

again  for  a  few  months  at  Margate,  and  he  learned  to 
write.  Doubtless  a  modicum  of  the  third  of  the  three  r's 
was  also  conveyed  to  him — though  the  New  Brentford 
schoolfellows  are  said  to  have  done  his  sums  for 
him — and  with  this  scanty  apparatus  of  learning,  so 
scanty  that  he  could  never  easily  express  himself  in 
either  speech  or  writing,  he  was  sent  forth  upon  his 
way  through  life. 

Whether  Turner  would  have  lost  or  gained  had  his 
educational  outfit  been  less  slender  it  may  be  idle  to 
conjecture.  More  time  given  to  books  would  have 
meant  less  time  given  to  observation  and  drawing  and 
painting  ;  and  one  of  Ruskin's  points  about  the  truth 
in  his  pictures  is  that  with  no  knowledge  of  science  he 
was  yet  scientifically  accurate — when,  and  so  far  as  he 
cared  to  be  accurate,  it  is  necessary  to  add.  More 
reading  might  have  made  his  mythological  and  histori- 
cal pictures  more  learned ;  but  would  it  have  made 
them  more  imaginative  ?  Could  classical  scholarship 
have  bettered  by  one  jot  or  tittle  Apvllo  and  the 
Python  and  Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus  ?  All  the 
same,  it  may  be  admitted  that  more  learning  might 
have  saved  him  from  some  conspicuous  failures  in 
pictures  of  this  kind.  Had  he  done  his  own  sums  at 
school,  and  proceeded  to  the  scientific  study  of  geo- 
metry and  perspective,  his  lectures  as  Professor  of 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  43 

Perspective  at  the  Royal  Academy  might  have  been 
more  coherent  and  more  scientific  ;  but  would  there 
have  been  in  them  so  much  to  see,  as  one  of  his 
colleagues,  who  happened  to  be  deaf,  said  of  them  ? 
It  may  be  mentioned  here  that,  lacking  any  exact 
knowledge  of  his  own  language,  he  tried,  and  failed,  to 
learn  Greek.  He  clearly  read  sufficient  about  classical 
mythology,  chiefly  in  Ovid  and  sufficient  history 
and  poetry,  for  his  imagination  to  be  kindled,  for  him 
to  have  a  vision  of  the  coming  and  going  of  the 
generations  of  mankind,  in  the  light  of  which,  as  well 
as  in  that  of  the  sun,  he  painted  his  pictures.  His 
attempts  to  write  poetry  may  or  may  not  mean  that 
more  study  of  language  in  early  years  would  have  led 
to  his  doing  less  of  what  he  could  do  supremely  well 
in  order  to  do  more  of  what  he  could  only  have 
done  less  well  than  many  who  though  they  have 
striven  earnestly  have  yet  no  name  among  the  poets. 
It  is  all  mere  matter  for  conjecture ;  and  there  we 
must  leave  it.  That  he  had  little  Latin  and  less 
Greek  did  not  lessen  Shakespeare's  insight  into  human 
nature  and  power  to  give  it  supreme  dramatic  expression ; 
and  Turner  had  far  less,  and  needed  less,  of  the 
learning  that  can  be  got  from  books,  to  take  him  to 
the  very  highest  achievement  in  his  own  art. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  his  early  training  in  that  art, 


44  TURNER 

and  consider  it,  not  merely  in  the  way  of  record,  but 
in  relation  to  the  life-work  for  which  it  prepared  the 
way.  In  doing  this  we  shall  find  it  useful  to  begin  with 
a  reference  to  a  famous  passage  in  '  Modern  Painters.' 

This  passage  is  the  one  in  which  Ruskin  gives 
advice  to  young  artists,  advice  that  Holman  Hunt 
found  to  correspond  closely  with  the  theory  he  was 
working  out  of  the  relation  of  art  to  nature,  and  that 
Hamerton  tells  us  he  followed  for  a  time,  and  then 
abandoned,  because  he  found  it  to  be  wholly  mistaken. 
'  From  young  artists,'  says  the  young  Ruskin,  'nothing 
ought  to  be  tolerated  but  simple  bonafide  imitation  of 
nature.'  They  are  not  to  ape  the  execution  of  masters; 
they  are  not  to  compose,  not  to  seek  after  the  Beautiful 
or  the  Sublime.  '  They  should  keep  to  quiet  colours, 
greys  and  browns  ;  and,  making  the  early  works  of 
Turner  their  example,  as  his  latest  are  to  be  their 
objects  of  emulation,  should  go  to  Nature  in  all 
singleness  of  heart,  and  walk  with  her  laboriously 
and  trustingly,  having  no  other  thoughts  but  how 
to  penetrate  her  meaning,  and  remember  her  in- 
struction ;  rejecting  nothing,  selecting  nothing,  and 
scorning  nothing  ;  believing  all  things  to  be  right  and 
good,  and  rejoicing  always  in  the  truth.' 

One  would  naturally  conclude  from  this  that  Turner 
began  with  bona  fide  imitation  of  nature.     The  fact  is 


LIFE    AND    LIFE-WORK  45 

that,  alike  in  boyhood,  youth  and  early  manhood,  he 
did  not  do  this,  that  he  was  constantly  copying  and 
imitating  the  works  of  older  artists  ;  and  that  when 
he  worked  from  nature,  he  selected,  rejected  and  com- 
posed. His  progress  was  not  from  nature  to  art ;  there 
was,  in  fact,  more  truth  to  nature,  even  if  also  more 
art,  in  his  later  than  in  his  early  work.  Art  mingled 
with  nature  in  his  work  from  the  very  first ;  and 
nature  was  always  expressed  in  terms  of  art. 

The  record  of  his  early  work  substantiates  what  has 
just  been  said.  It  might  seem  idle  to  take  into  account 
what  he  did  between  the  ages  of  nine  and  fourteen  ; 
but  he  had  only  reached  the  latter  age  when  he  was 
sufficiently  advanced  to  become  a  student  in  the  Royal 
Academy.  At  and  soon  after  the  earlier  age  he  was 
copying  and  colouring  prints  of  old  buildings,  an 
anticipation  of  some  of  the  most  important  of  his  after 
work,  and  he  also  sketched  by  the  river-side  and  in  the 
country.  When  eleven  or  twelve  years  old,  he  had 
lessons  from  a  Soho  drawing-master,  with  whom 
flowers  were  a  specialty.  The  brief  spell  of  schooling 
at  Margate,  already  mentioned,  was  followed  by  lessons 
in  perspective.  These  would  help  to  qualify  him  to 
execute  drawings  for  an  architect,  Mr.  Hardwick, 
into  whose  employ  he  entered  in  1789,  the  year  that 
he  entered  the  Academy  Schools.  The  story  of  his 


46  TURNER 

putting  in  the  reflected  light  in  the  windows  of  a 
building  in  an  architectural  drawing  he  was  colouring, 
and  of  his  refusal  to  alter  the  colouring  to  the  stereo- 
typed monotonous  grey  leading  to  a  breach  between  one 
employer,  Mr.  Dobson,  an  architect,  and  himself, 
suggests  that  he  had  already  become  keenly  observant, 
and  was  not  likely  for  long  passively  to  accept  the 
conventions  of  other  artists. 

He  very  early  began  to  make  money  by  his  art. 
His  father,  if  he  had  the  keen  business  instinct  that  is 
attributed  to  him,  would  see  that  this  consideration  was 
not  overlooked.  The  boy's  drawings  were  exhibited 
for  sale  in  the  paternal  shop-window ;  and  here  again 
the  child  was  father  to  the  man,  for  Turner's  later 
business  dealings  were  keen  to  something  more  than 
a  fault.  Colouring  prints  for  John  Raphael  Smith, 
engraver,  miniature  painter  and  printseller,  and  wash- 
ing in  backgrounds  for  Mr.  Porden,  another  architect 
who  employed  him,  were  also  occupations  of  this 
period.  When  someone  at  a  later  date  spoke  of  the 
drudgery  he  had  thus  gone  through,  he  replied  that  he 
could  not  have  had  better  practice. 

Of  the  greatest  importance  for  Turner's  art  were  the 
evenings  spent  at  the  house  of  Dr.  Monro,  physician 
to  the  Bridewell  and  Bethlehem  Hospitals,  whose 
town-house  was  in  the  Adelphi.  Really,  a  better 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  47 

place  than  Maiden  Lane  for  Turner's  early  home  could 
hardly  have  been  deliberately  chosen  for  him.  Two 
or  three  minutes'  walk  down  to  and  across  the  Strand 
towards  the  much-loved  river  would  bring  him  to  the 
doctor's  house,  where  that  enthusiastic  patron  of  art 
was  wont  to  gather  young  painters  of  an  evening  and 
give  them  half-a-crown  and  a  supper  to  make  copies 
of  water-colour  drawings  for  him.  Sketches  made 
near  the  doctor's  country-house  at  Bushey  obtained 
a  like  reward ;  and,  in  making  the  sketches  in  the 
country,  Turner  looked  at  nature  in  the  light  of  the 
drawings  by  Sandby,  Cozens  and  others,  that  he  copied 
at  the  town-house.  Hence,  when  Redgrave  tells  us 
that  Turner  began  his  art  by  sketching  from  nature,  we 
must  not  think  of  him  as  going  to  nature  in  the  way 
in  which  Holman  Hunt  did  in  his  youth,  laboriously 
to  set  down,  with  the  minimum  of  composition,  exactly 
what  he  saw,  but  as  reshaping  nature  to  make  it  fit  in 
with  certain  well-established  conventions  of  art,  deter- 
mined in  part  by  a  very  limited  knowledge  of  the 
capabilities  of  the  materials  used  by  the  artist. 

As  an  example  of  his  work  at  this  time  we  may 
take  the  first  water-colour  drawing,  a  view  of  the 
archiepiscopal  palace  at  Lambeth,  which  he  exhibited 
at  the  Royal  Academy,  in  1790,  when  he  was  fifteen 
years  old.  It  is  very  clever  for  a  boy  of  that  age.  It 


48  TURNER 

proves  the  truth  of  what  he  himself  said,  that  what 
others  thought  drudgery  was  indeed  the  best  of  practice 
for  him,  for  there  is  perfect  sureness  in  the  use 
of  the  materials  within  the  conventional  limits  then 
inevitable.  Yet  there  is  nothing  but  convention.  The 
sky,  the  tree-drawing,  the  colour,  the  light  and  shade, 
the  composition,  are  not  learned  from  nature,  but  from 
art  as  practised  by  his  seniors.  In  due  time  Turner 
was  to  develop  the  art  of  water-colour  drawing  until  it 
became  something  undreamed  of  by  the  teachers  of  his 
youth  ;  he  was  to  establish  his  own  conventions  ;  he 
was  to  fill  his  mind  with  an  inexhaustible  store 
of  closely  observed,  natural  facts,  and  to  bring  this 
store  into  the  service  of  his  art ;  but  art  and  nature 
were  never  to  change  the  relative  places  they  held 
in  his  early  work.  The  difference  was  to  be  that 
an  imperfect  language  quickly  acquired  by  a  brilliantly 
gifted  boy  was  to  become  a  medium  of  self-expression 
such  as  art  had  not  previously  known. 

Among  the  young  painters  whom  Turner  met  at 
Dr.  Monro's  house — Francia,  Varley,  Edridge,  John 
Linnell  and  others  being  also  of  the  number — was 
Thomas  Girtin,  whose  brief  career  has  great  artistic 
and  not  a  little  pathetic  interest.  There  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  Girtin  could  ever  have  been  the  rival 
of  Turner ;  but  the  saying  of  the  latter,  already 


LIFE  AND   LIFE-WORK  49 

quoted,  that  he  would  have  starved  had  Girtin  lived, 
was  only  a  well-deserved  tribute  over-generously  ex- 
pressed. Girtin  had  more  than  talent,  he  had  genius  ; 
and  his  death  in  1802,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-seven, 
leaving  the  field  clear  for  Turner,  who  had  learned  not 
a  little  from  him,  touches  us  the  more  by  reason  of  the 
great  achievement  of  his  friend.  There  was  only 
about  two  months  between  them  in  age,  Girtin  having 
been  born  in  February,  1775  ;  and  both  were  natives 
of  London,  Girtin's  father  being  a  rope  and  cordage 
manufacturer  in  Southwark.  Girtin's  first  teacher  was 
an  Aldersgate  Street  drawing-master  named  Fisher  j 
and  he  afterwards  studied  under  Edward  Dayes,  a 
water-colour  painter  and  engraver,  who  appears  to  have 
been  jealous  of  his  pupil's  skill,  and  actually  had  him 
imprisoned  for  refusing  to  serve  out  his  indentures. 
There  certainly  was  room  for  jealousy,  for  Girtin  sur- 
passed all  his  predecessors  in  water-colour  art,  being 
the  first  to  abandon  mere  tinting  for  a  fuller  use 
of  colour.  In  this  he  was  Turner's  instructor.  For 
a  time  they  ran  an  even  race,  the  works  of  the  one  in 
general  features  closely  resembling  those  of  the  other. 
Some  say  that  by  the  time  of  Girtin's  death  Turner 
had  outdistanced  him  ;  others  that  the  race  was  still  a 
dead  heat.  At  least  there  were  signs  of  development 
in  Turner  that  were  lacking  in  Girtin  ;  and  we  may 

E 


50  TURNER 

well  attribute  the  difference  to  the  robust  constitution 
of  the  former  and  the  declining  strength  and  failing 
spirits  of  the  latter  under  the  insidious  advance  of  pul- 
monary disease.  In  what  did  the  difference  consist  ? 
The  answer  is  clearly  important  to  us,  for  it  must  show 
the  direction  in  which  Turner  was  advancing. 

The  earlier  English  water-colour  artists  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  such  men  as  Alexander  Cozens, 
Paul  Sandby  and  J.  R.  Cozens,  were  draftsmen 
rather  than  painters.  When  they  worked  in  pure 
water-colour — they  also  used  tempera — they  outlined 
their  subjects,  laid  in  the  shadows  with  Indian  ink  or 
some  other  neutral  tint,  and  then  added  colour  in  pale, 
transparent  washes.  Their  work  had  a  modest  aim  ; 
it  was  mainly  mere  illustration,  intended  to  show  the 
look  of  places  and  buildings  at  home  and  abroad. 
Imagination  had  little  scope  in  what  was  expected  of 
the  artist  by  his  public,  nor  did  the  varying  moods  of 
nature,  her  beauty  or  grandeur,  her  quietude  or  the 
putting  forth  of  her  power  in  storm,  enter  into  the 
bargain.  Places  of  antiquarian  interest,  ruined  temples, 
abbeys,  cathedrals,  castles ;  the  country-seats  of  the 
English  nobility  and  squirearchy  ;  picturesque  views  ; 
such  were  the  subjects  in  demand  ;  and  the  drawings 
were  often  intended  for  reproduction  in  aquatint,  and 
as  illustrations  to  such  publications  as  Walker's 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  51 

'  Itinerant '  and  Byrne's  '  Antiquities  of  Great 
Britain,'  the  titles  of  which  sufficiently  indicate  their 
character.  This  was  the  art  that  Girtin  and  Turner 
learned  from  their  teachers  ;  such  were  the  drawings 
they  copied  for  Dr.  Monro;  when  they  worked 
direct  from  nature  these  were  the  methods  they  used. 
Dayes,  the  teacher  of  Girtin,  who  has  already  been 
mentioned,  published  'Instructions  for  Drawing  and 
Colouring  Landscapes,'  in  which  he  bids  the  student 
to  lay  in  the  sky  with  Prussian  blue  and  Indian  ink, 
the  middle  tints  and  shadows  of  the  'terrestrial  part 
of  the  drawing  in  grey,  and  only  when  this  has  been 
done  is  colour  to  be  added.  Even  then,  'great 
caution  will  be  required  not  to  disturb  the  shadows 
with  colour,  otherwise  the  harmony  of  the  whole  will 
be  destroyed,  or  at  any  rate,  not  to  do  more  than 
gently  to  colour  the  reflections.'  Girtin  and  Turner,  the 
former  leading  the  way,  practically  revolutionised  the 
art  by  at  once  painting  the  middle  tints  and  shadows 
in  colour,  instead  of  in  the  neutral  tint,  which  was  a 
pure  convention,  for  when  objects  in  nature  are  in 
shade  or  shadow  their  colour  is  only  a  variation  of 
that  which  they  reflect  in  pure  sunlight,  with  a 
tendency,  as  recent  observation  has  shown,  to  appear 
to  the  human  eye  somewhat  purple  in  hue  in  contrast 
with  the  colour  of  highly  illumined  objects. 


52  TURNER 

In  this  way,  then,  Girtin  and  Turner  worked  in 
water-colour.  But,  as  time  went  on,  while  Girtin's 
colouring  remained  broad  and  sober,  and  while  he 
seemed  to  take  the  greatest  pleasure  in  effects  of 
gloom  and  grandeur,  Turner  began  to  show  that 
strong  feeling  for  light  and  colour  which  was  to 
become  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  his 
art,  nay,  in  his  interpretation  of  nature,  its  very 
essence,  the  master-light  of  all  his  seeing.  Thus, 
while  his  genius  was  expanding,  that  of  Girtin 
seemed  to  be  reaching  its  limit.  It  may  be,  as 
already  suggested,  that  the  ebbing  away  of  Girtin's 
life  sufficiently  accounts  for  this.  However  this  may 
be,  as  Redgrave  says  of  him,  'he  had  but  one 
manner,  and  that  he  had  nearly  perfected  when  he 
died.'  His  companion,  stronger,  and  always  more 
strenuous,  lived  on  to  do  things  that  none  had  done 
before  him,  and  that  no  successor  has,  in  the  same 
kind,  even  nearly  approached. 

This  comparison  between  Turner  and  Girtin  has 
taken  us  to  the  year  1802,  but  there  are  details  of 
Turner's  life  and  progress  before  this  time  that  must 
not  be  overlooked.  We  have  seen  him  exhibiting  a 
drawing  at  the  Royal  Academy  in  1 790,  when  only 
fifteen  years  old.  It  should  be  noted  here  that  he 
began  as  a  painter  in  water-colour  only  ;  oil  painting 


LIFE   AND    LIFE-WORK  53 

was  to  come  later,  his  first  work  in  this  medium  not 
being  exhibited  until  1 797. 

About  1/93  he  made  the  first  of  his  many  sketch- 
ing tours.  He  would  be  accurately  described  as  a 
supertramp.  He  was  a  hard-working  one.  When, 
like  the  common  or  highway  tramp,  he  returned  to  his 
workhouse,  it  was  to  work,  not  at  mechanical  tasks, 
but  at  that  which  was  the  delight  of  his  life  :  con- 
verting into  works  of  art  what  he  had  seen  and 
noted  during  his  tramping.  He  preferred  to  be  alone 
on  these  expeditions.  From  early  days  he  was  little 
if  anything  less  than  secretive  in  his  life  and  work  ; 
and  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  die,  he  hid  him- 
self from  his  friends.  The  barest  necessaries,  tied  in  a 
bundle,  were  his  impedimenta  ;  his  sketching  materials 
would  not  suffice  the  most  bungling  of  amateurs  for 
doing  nothing  worth  looking  at.  He"  took  the  coach, 
or  rode  a  horse,  or  walked,  as  best  served  his  purpose. 
The  simplest  accommodation  satisfied  him.  He  had 
learned  to  rough  it  at  home,  where  his  bedroom  was 
his  studio,  jealously  forbidden  to  all  would-be  visitors. 
We  shall  find  him  later  having  himself  lashed  to  a 
mast  in  order  that  he  may  watch  the  storm  that  is 
threatening  him  with  death.  This  makes  it  but  a 
simple  thing  that  when  in  Devonshire  with  Mr.  Cyrus 
Redding  and  others,  he  should  prefer  to  spend  the 


54  TURNER 

night  in  a  country  inn  rather  than  seek  more  comfort- 
able quarters  in  Tavistock.  Bread  and  cheese  and 
beer  served  him  for  dinner  and  supper  in  one,  says 
Mr.  Redding,  who  stayed  with  him  at  the  inn,  and 
secured  for  himself  the  luxury  of  bacon  and  eggs. 
They  talked  till  midnight,  by  the  light  of  an 
'  attenuated '  candle.  Then  Turner  went  to  sleep 
with  his  head  on  the  table,  while  his  companion 
stretched  himself  on  a  line  of  chairs.  As  soon  as 
the  sun  was  up  they  were  out  exploring  the  neigh- 
bourhood ;  and  it  was  then  that  Turner  made  a  sketch 
for  one  of  his  finest  early  oil  paintings,  Crossing  the 
Broo^.  Many  are  the  stories  told  of  his  persistence 
in  work,  in  season  and  out  of  season  ;  such  as  that 
once,  when  a  diligence  in  which  he  was  travelling 
stopped,  he  began  to  make  a  sketch  from  the  window, 
and  stormed  at  the  conductor  because  the  vehicle 
started  again  before  the  sketch  was  finished.  We  can 
well  believe  in  the  literal  accuracy  of  the  story  that 
when  a  salute  was  fired  from  a  battery  immediately 
beneath  which  he  was  sketching,  the  line  he  was  draw- 
ing at  the  moment  pursued  exactly  its  intended  way ! 

There  is  much  in  Turner's  work  that  will  be  most 
keenly  enjoyed  by  the  sketching  tramp.  Such  an  one, 
however  humble,  will  feel  again  and  again  as  he  looks 
at  Turner's  works  that,  despite  the  vast  disparity 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  55 

between  them,  the  great  artist  and  he  are  brothers  in 
enjoyment.  The  daft  organ-blower  who  threatened  to 
blow  his  favourite  tune  if  the  musician  would  not  play 
it  had  the  soul  of  an  artist.  Turner  tramped  in 
England,  Wales  and  Scotland,  in  France,  Switzer- 
land and  Italy,  and  fully  to  enjoy  his  work  one  must 
tramp  also — and,  it  should  be  said  also,  fully  to  enjoy 
tramping,  to  get  from  it  all  that  can  be  got,  one  should 
study  Turner. 

From  what  has  been  said  on  earlier  pages  it  will  be 
gathered  that  the  tramp  will  learn  from  Turner  to 
cultivate  a  wide  catholicity  of  interest.  We  shall  see 
in  a  later  chapter — it  has  been  hinted  at  already — how 
keenly  Turner  was  interested  in  what  he  saw  his 
fellow-human  manikins  doing  under  the  sun.  Such 
interest  comes  naturally  to  any  order  of  tramp.  He 
has  no  need  to  learn  it.  But  from  Turner  we  can 
learn  to  see  it  in  relation  to  the  beauty  and  splendour 
of  nature,  as  material  for  great  epic  art. 

There  are  landscape  painters  who  think  that   they 
can  best  interpret  nature  by  minimising  or  excluding  all 
human  interest.      But  solitude  is  not  solitude  if  there      V 
be  no  one  all   alone.      Robinson  Crusoe's  island  was 
fully  peopled  until  he  was  cast  upon  it.     That  there  is 

Water,  water  every  where 
Nor  any  drop  to  drink 


56  TURNER 

is  without  meaning  for  an  ocean  that  no  mariner  ever 
crosses.  Not  that  we  always  need  figures  or  signs  of 
human  life  in  pictures,  which  sometimes  may  be  meant 
to  impress  upon  us  the  vast  periods  of  geologic  time. 
Turner  puts  no  figure  when  he  shows  us  the  waves 
dashing  against  the  basaltic  columns  of  Fingal's  Cave  ; 
yet  surely  the  sense  of  the  stupendous  forces  of  nature 
is  enormously  increased  in  his  drawing  of  Loch 
Coruisk  by  the  tiny  figures  perched,  insecurely  as  it 
seems,  on  the  rock  immediately  below  the  spectator. 

When  he  was  in  the  places  where  man  lives  and 
works,  Turner  noted,  and  put  in  his  pictures  of  them, 
just  such  incidents  as  the  passing  tramp  would  note  : 
wayside  happenings,  other  travellers,  the  carrier's 
waggon,  the  stage-coach,  droves  of  cattle,  market- 
people  entering  or  leaving  a  town,  idlers  on  the  bridge 
— we  shall  say  more  of  this  hereafter  ;  sufficient  at  the 
moment  to  note  that  Turner  was  a  genuine  and  there- ' 
fore  a  happy  tramp. 

Then,  also,  he  shows  himself  a  tramp  in  his  treat- 
ment of  landscape,  and  this  not  merely  in  that  he  was 
fond  of  the  prospects  that  open  out  from  a  turn  in  the 
road  or  the  brow  of  a  hill,  but  also  in  that,  because  he 
merely  made  pencil  notes  as  he  went  along,  generally 
adding  afterwards  the  colour  in  even  his  sketches,  he 
was  free  to  observe  and  store  his  mind  with  an  endless 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  57 

multiplicity  of  varying  atmospheric  effects  and  of 
details  of  landscape.  He  saw  everything,  and  nothing 
came  amiss  to  him.  His  tramps  were  really  collecting 
expeditions  as  much  as  those  of  the  botanist  and  the 
geologist ;  and  as  they,  in  their  inn  at  night,  or  when 
they  return  home,  arrange  their  specimens  scientifically, 
so  he  arranged  his  specimens — the  word  is  a  hateful 
one,  but  how  avoid  it  here  ? — artistically.  This 
accounts  for  the  immense  range  of  Turner's  records 
that  makes  Ruskin's  comparison  of  him  to  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon  not  only  a  possible  but  a  justifiable  one. 
Only  a  sketching  tramp  could  have  done  all  in  this 
way  that  Turner  did.  The  Pre-Raphaelites  could 
not  do  it,  nor  can  the  pleln  air  painters.  The  late 
Walter  Severn  told  the  present  writer — it  was  at 
Coniston,  on  the  day  of  Ruskin's  funeral — that 
Ruskin  was  once  watching  him  paint  a  landscape, 
and  said  to  him,  '  Severn,  you  try  to  do  too  much  ; 
you  cannot  paint  rapidly  moving  clouds.  I  never 
paint  anything  that  is  moving.  I  am  always  nervous 
when  I  am  painting  anything  that  can  move,  lest  it 
should  move  on  ! '  Happily  Turner  had  a  wonderful 
visual  memory. 

Turner,  then,  to  continue  our  biographical  narrative, 
began  his  tramping  about  1793,  aged,  therefore,  let 
us  remember,  about  eighteen.  He  set  out  to  make 


58  TURNER 

drawings  for  Walker's  'Copper-plate  Magazine.'  They 
were  to  be  from  nature ;  and  he  was  to  receive  two 
guineas  each  for  them,  with  a  modest  allowance  for 
travelling  expenses.  He  journeyed  into  Kent,  to 
Wales,  and,  the  next  year,  to  Shropshire  and  Cheshire, 
returning  by  way  of  the  Midlands.  Shortly  after  this 
he  was  away  again  to  make  drawings  for  Harrison's 
'  Pocket  Magazine.'  This  was  the  kind  of  thing,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  that  the  water-colour  draftsmen 
were  set  to  do,  and  Turner,  to  begin  with,  did  it  with 
no  very  great  departure  from  orthodox  topography. 
He  had  his  orders,  a  certain  pattern  was  required,  and 
he  supplied  it.  But  he  was  both  eager  and  quick  to 
learn,  and  thus  early  he  had  assimilated  much  of  the 
best  in  the  art  of  his  teachers,  of  the  men  whose 
works  he  copied,  and  of  those  who  were  working 
alongside  him.  These  early  drawings  show  surprising 
skill  in  treatment  and  considerable  range  of  effect. 
His  developing  imagination  is  to  be  seen  in  some  of 
them,  and  was  acknowledged  in  contemporary  criti- 
cism. He  felt  already  that  his  art  had  a  higher 
mission  than  merely  to  give  skilfully  composed, 
recognisable  views  of  places,  sufficient  to  satisfy 
country  squires  and  their  dames  and  daughters,  and 
townsfolk  who  liked  to  be  pleasantly  reminded  of  the 
country.  Nature  and  life  were  beginning  to  speak  to 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  59 

him  in  deeper  tones,  and  to  say  to  him  more  intimate 
things  than  most  men  could  hear. 

Thus  early,  also,  we  find  a  wide  range  of  subject. 
His  training  in  architectural  draftsmanship  now  stood 
him  in  good  stead,  as  it  did  also  in  later  years.  By 
the  year  1797,  when  he  was  twenty-two  years  old,  he 
had  drawn  many  of  the  cathedrals,  including  Salisbury, 
Canterbury,  Rochester,  Worcester,  Ely,  Lincoln, 
Peterborough  and  York,  the  abbeys  of  Bath,  Tintern, 
Llanthony,  Malvern  and  others,  and  many  ruined 
castles.  The  graceful  forms  and  intricately  beauti- 
ful detail  of  Gothic  architecture  are  sympathetically 
rendered,  and  from  the  boyish  experiment  of  light 
reflected  from  windows  he  had  passed  to  the  subtle 
play  of  light  and  shade  that  is  part  of  the  calculated 
effect  of  architecture,  and  also  goes  far  beyond  calcula- 
tion, enriching  buildings,  whether  in  ruin,  or  still 
intact  though  weather-beaten,  with  endlessly  changeful 
beauty.  Buildings,  whether  great  cathedrals,  abbeys  and 
castles,  or  the  humbler  churches,  and  the  picturesque 
houses  of  quiet  old  towns,  count  for  much  in  Turner's 
early,  as  in  his  later  work.  We  shall  see  that 
when,  late  on  in  life,  he  undertook  to  illustrate  the 
rivers  of  France,  and  only  succeeded  in  illustrating  two 
of  them,  he  rarely  strayed  away  from  the  towns,  or  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  towns,  on  their  banks. 


60  TURNER 

In  these  early  days  he  also  anticipated  his  later  work, 
in  that  if  he  drew  a  stream  flowing  through  the 
country,  he  almost  invariably  introduced  a  bridge.  The 
fascination  of  the  Thames  bridges  he  had  known  from 
childhood  seems  always  to  have  remained  with  him. 
Ships  and  shipping,  again,  he  was  to  paint  early  and 
late,  and  the  foundation  of  his  accurate  knowledge 
of  all  kinds  of  craft,  and  of  his  ability  to  draw  them, 
was  laid  in  these  early  years. 

In  1 797,  during  a  journey  that  extended  to  Cumber- 
land, Northumberland  and  the  South  of  Scotland,  he 
first  found  his  way  to  scenery  that  ever  afterwards 
was  to  mean  so  much  to  him  :  the  hill-country  of 
Yorkshire  and  Lancashire.  Even  now,  when  railways 
have  been  carried  along  the  dales,  what  a  feeling  of 
remoteness  there  is  in  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Ribble 
and  the  Lune,  of  the  Wharfe,  the  Swale  and  the  Tees ! 
What  tiny  objects  are  both  the  viaduct  at  Ribblehead 
and  the  train  that  crosses  it,  as  one  looks  down  upon 
them  from  the  summit  of  Ingleborough  !  Is  it  possible, 
we  ask  ourselves,  that  there  are  human  beings  in  what 
looks  less  than  even  a  toy  ?  Cosmo  Monkhouse 
rebukes  Ruskin  for  saying  of  this  first  visit  of  Turner's 
to  the  North,  '  For  the  first  time  the  silence  of 
Nature  round  him,  her  freedom  sealed  to  him,  her 
glory  opened  to  him.  Peace  at  last ;  no  roll  of  cart- 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  61 

wheel,  nor  mutter  of  sullen  voices  in  the  back  shop  ; 
but  curlew-cry  in  space  of  heaven,  and  welling  of  bell- 
toned  streamlet  by  its  shadowy  rock.  Freedom  at 
last.  Dead-wall,  dark  railing,  fenced  field,  gated 
garden,  all  passed  away  like  the  dream  of  a  prisoner ; 
and  behold,  far  as  foot  or  eye  can  race  or  range, 
the  moor  and  cloud.  Loveliness  at  last.  It  is  here 
then,  among  these  deserted  vales !  Not  among  men. 
Those  pale,  poverty-struck,  or  cruel  faces ; — that 
multitudinous  marred  humanity — are  not  the  only 
things  that  God  has  made.  Here  is  something  He 
has  made  which  no  one  has  marred.  Pride  of  purple 
rocks,  and  river  pools  of  blue,  and  tender  wilderness 
of  glittering  trees,  and  misty  lights  of  evening  on 
immeasurable  hills.'  This  is  the  pessimistic  view  of 
human  nature,  and  the  optimistic  view  of  nature  other 
than  human  in  which  Ruskin  was  brought  up,  and 
which  he  attributes  to  Turner  here,  and  as  we  shall 
see  later,  elsewhere.  There  is  no  evidence  that  Turner 
held  it ;  his  work,  indeed,  with  the  unfailing  interest 
it  shows  in  human  life,  as  already  mentioned  here, 
gives  abundant  evidence  to  the  contrary.  And  Mr. 
Monkhouse  asks  quite  rightly,  '  Can  his  experience 
of  mankind,  of  Dr.  Monro,  of  Girtin,  of  Mr.  Hard- 
wick,  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  of  Mr.  Henderson, 
have  left  upon  him  such  an  impression  of  the  failure 


62  TURNER 

of  God's  handiwork  in  making  men,  that  a  mountain 
seems  to  him  in  comparison  as  a  revelation  of  un- 
expected success  ? '  Turner  showed  ,no  desire  to  live 
apart  from  'that  multitudinous  marred  humanity,' 
indeed,  as  Hamerton  points  out,  he  preferred  to  make 
his  home  where  it  was  most  multitudinous. 

Yet,  after  all,  the  impression  produced  upon  Turner 
by  the  Yorkshire  Dales  and  the  Cumberland  Fells 
would  surely  be  very  much  what  Ruskin's  words 
suggest.  Though  man  be  not  marred,  he  is  a  long 
way  from  perfection,  and  though  nature  may  not  be 
quiet  to  other  ears  than  ours — and  not  always  to  ours 
— and  though  she  may  be  red  in  tooth  and  claw  with 
ravine,  yet,  generally,  unless  we  examine  her  closely, 
she  is  quiet  and  innocent  and  beautiful  to  us.  It  may 
be  a  fallacy  to  think  her  perfect  because  she  lacks  the 
particular  imperfections  of  human  nature  ;  yet  escape 
from  those  imperfections,  so  far  as  we  can  escape  from 
them  without  escaping  from  ourselves,  does  soothe 
and  strengthen  us  ;  so  that  even  though  there  may  be 
fallacy  in  the  process,  nature,  in  the  phrase  that 
Matthew  Arnold  applied  to  Wordsworth's  poetry, 
has  for  us  a  healing  power ;  and  nowhere  more  so, 
surely,  than  on  those  Northern  moorlands,  whose  vast 
spaciousness,  which  seems  to  mingle  with  the  sky 
above  them,  uplifts  us,  without  ever  threatening  or 


LIFE   AND    LIFE-WORK  63 

oppressing  us,  as  so  often  does  the  awful,  impending 
majesty  of  the  precipitously  towering  mountains  up 
which  man  presses  only  at  the  peril  of  his  life. 

Both  the  writers  just  referred  to  are  agreed  as  to 
the  influence  of  these  scenes  on  Turner's  art.  Says 
Monkhouse,  'The  pictures  of  1797-99  confirmed 
beyond  any  doubt  that  a  great  artist  had  arisen,  who 
was  not  only  a  painter  but  a  poet — a  poet,  not  so 
much  of  the  pathos  of  ruin,  though  so  many  of  his 
pictures  had  ruins  in  them,  nor  of  the  chequered  fate 
of  mankind,  though  there  is  something  of  the 
"  Fallacies  of  Hope "  indicated  in  the  quotations  to 
his  pictures — as  of  the  mystery  and  beauty  of  light, 
of  the  power  of  nature,  her  inexhaustible  variety  and 
energy,  her  infinite  complexity  and  fulness.  .  .  . 
Altogether  it  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  in- 
fluence of  the  first  journey  to  the  North  upon 
Turner's  mind  and  art,  although  he  had  almost 
perfected  his  skill  and  shown  unmistakable  signs  of 
genius  before.'  Add  to  the  quotation  from  Ruskin 
given  above  the  following  lines  and  we  have  very 
much  what  Monkhouse  says  :  *  I  am  in  the  habit  of 
looking  to  the  Yorkshire  drawings  as  indicating  one 
of  the  culminating  points  of  Turner's  career.  In 
these  he  attained  the  highest  degree  of  what  he  had 
up  to  that  time  attempted,  namely  finish  and  quantity 


64  TURNER 

of  form  united  with  expression  of  atmosphere,  and 
light  without  colour.' 

The  last  words  in  this  quotation  from  Ruskin  are 
significant.  Beginning  as  a  draftsman,  for  whom 
painting  meant  only  tinting  drawings,  Turner  had  now 
reached  a  middle  point  between  the  art  that  he  had 
merely  adopted  from  his  predecessors  and  his  later 
dreams  of  glowing  light  and  colour.  His  power  of 
design,  which  is  really  an  instinct  for  visible  music, 
becomes  increasingly  manifest ;  into  the  design  he  was 
able  to  bring  a  surprising  wealth  of  the  detail  for 
which  he  had  such  keen  sight,  and  which  he  greatly 
enjoyed;  both  the  design  and  the  detail  received  a 
deeper  significance  from  all-pervading  effects  of  light, 
and  the  colour,  though  far  from  what  it  was  yet  to 
become,  was  both  warmer  and  wider  in  range. 

Ruskin  speaks  of  the  Yorkshire  Dales  as  deserted. 
They  were  not  deserted,  but  merely  sparsely  populated  ; 
and  doubtless  Turner  found  their  humbler  inhabitants 
by  no  means  to  be  avoided  as  only  so  much  marred 
humanity.  Certainly  among  the  wealthy  and  cultured 
people  of  the  Yorkshire  and  Lancashire  hill-country 
he  found  some  of  his  best  friends,  men  who  not  only 
recognised  his  genius,  but  gave  him  the  help  that  freed 
him  from  material  cares,  and  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  go  where  he  would  to  find  in  nature  inspiration  for 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  65 

his  art.  From  first  to  last  Turner  was  singularly  happy 
in  his  friends.  He  had  nothing  to  complain  of  in  them ; 
though,  as  one  of  them  whom  he  first  met  in  these  days, 
Dr.  Whitaker  of  Whalley,  soon  found  out,  he  himself 
could  inflict  upon  others  the  irritability  of  genius. 

Dr.  Whitaker,  who  was  the  Vicar  of  Whalley,  in 
Ribblesdale,  was  a  man  of  means,  and  also  a  learned 
antiquary,  and  was  preparing  at  this  time  a  history  of 
his  parish,  for  which  he  wished  to  have  illustrations. 
It  is  probable  that  Turner  was  recommended  to  him 
for  this  purpose  by  a  Mr.  Edwards,  a  publisher  and 
bookseller  at  Halifax.  Anyhow,  they  met,  and 
Turner  made  three  drawings,  Whalley  Abbey ^  Clltheroe 
and  Broivsholme,  for  the  Doctor's  book.  After  this 
the  Doctor  published  a  '  History  of  Craven,'  for  which 
Turner  did  an  architectural  drawing  ;  and  these  com- 
missions were  followed,  at  a  later  date,  by  another  for 
drawings  to  illustrate  the  same  writer's  '  History  of 
Richmondshire,'  which  was  the  occasion  of  Turner's 
doing  some  of  his  very  finest  work.  Hamerton,  who 
was  a  native  of  the  Lancashire  hill-country  near 
Burnley,  with  which  the  present  writer  happens  to  be 
very  familiar,  writes  with  particular  enthusiasm  about 
this  part  of  Turner's  life,  which  makes  it  permissible 
and  interesting  to  quote  the  following  passage  from  his 
'  Life  of  Turner.'  « The  old  mansion  of  the  Whitakers, 


66  TURNER 

the  Holme  (familiar  to  the  present  biographer  from  his 
infancy)  is  situated  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  scenes 
of  Lancashire  which  still  remain  unspoiled  by  the 
manufacturers.  Near  Burnley  the  vale  is  broad,  and 
is  occupied  by  the  noble  demesne  of  Towneley,  which 
sweeps  up  the  great  waves  of  land  before  and  behind 
the  Hall,  and  fills  all  the  hollow  between  them  with 
rich  meadows  and  a  park  full  of  sylvan  beauty ;  but  as 
you  go  from  ToAvneley  to  the  Holme  the  valley 
rapidly  narrows,  till  at  last  it  becomes  a  gorge  or 
defile,  with  bold  steep  slopes  which  end  in  rugged 
cliffs  of  perpendicular  rock,  as  high  as  the  sea-cliffs  on 
the  wild  Yorkshire  coast.  On  each  side  of  the  glen 
there  are  gullies  or  ravines  formed  by  the  watercourses, 
and  at  the  foot  of  one  of  these  ravines  stands  the  old 
house  yet,  much  altered  and  enriched,  but  still  preserving 
its  main  features.  It  is  just  one  of  those  regions  which 
Turner  would  have  illustrated  nobly  in  his  maturity.' 

Alas !  since  Hamerton  penned  this  description, 
thirty  years  ago,  Burnley  has  not  only  encroached 
upon,  but  appropriated  the  Towneley  demesne.  The 
park  is  giving  place  to  brick  houses  ;  the  once  noble 
trees  that  surround  the  Hall  are  dying  ;  and  it  is  little 
more  than  a  melancholy  satisfaction  that  the  Hall — 
once  the  home  of  the  famous  Towneley  marbles — is 
now  used  as  the  Art  Gallery  of  the  Burnley  Corpora- 


LIFE    AND   LIFE-WORK  67 

tion  ;  and  that  the  dwellers  in  the  smoky  manufactur- 
ing town  have  the  enjoyment  of  what  is  left  of  the 
beauty  of  the  grounds  immediately  around  it.  Sooner 
or  later,  one  fears,  the  Holme  will  also  be  enveloped 
and  then  disappear. 

In  1799,  Turner,  then  twenty-four  years  old,  was 
elected  an  Associate  of  the  Royal  Academy.  Many 
an  artist  who  has  been  elected  first  to  associateship  and 
then  to  membership  of  the  Academy  has  ceased  to  be 
even  a  name  except  to  laborious  students  of  records, 
talent,  by  no  means  always  great,  having  been  quite 
sufficient  qualification  for  academic  recognition.  It  does 
not  follow,  therefore,  that  because  Turner  received  these 
honours  his  genius  was  fully  recognised  by  his  contem- 
poraries. He  might  still  have  been  the  man  born  out 
of  due  time  that  Ruskin  made  him  out  to  be.  But, 
certainly,  election  to  associateship  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
four,  and  election  that  must  have  been  based  chiefly 
upon  his  work  in  water-colour,  shows  the  Academi- 
cians to  have  realised  that  this  ex-student  in  their 
schools  had  proved  himself  so  early  to  be  at  least  a 
painter  of  very  considerable  talent.  It  may  be  assumed 
that  they  had  observed  the  remarkable  advance  in  his 
water-colour  drawings  during  the  previous  two  or 
three  years,  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made. 
One  of  these  drawings  was  of  Norham  Castle,  a  subject 


68  TURNER 

to  which  he  returned  again  and  again.  Many  years 
after  this  time,  when  he  was  in  Scotland  making 
drawings  to  illustrate  Sir  Walter  Scott's  poems,  he 
and  the  publisher  Cadell,  who  had  commissioned  the 
drawings,  were  walking  along  Tweedside,  and  Turner 
raised  his  hat  to  Norham  Castle.  Cadell  asked  him 
why  he  did  so,  and  his  reply  was  a  reference  to  the 
early  drawing  of  it  :  '  That  picture  made  me.' 

Turner's  diploma  picture,  Dolbadern  Castle,  one 
result  of  a  visit  to  Wales  in  the  previous  year,  was  an 
oil  painting  of  the  Wilson  type.  .  Hitherto,  we  have 
seen  Turner  only  as  a  painter  in  water-colour ;  and 
have  found  him,  after  his  prentice  days,  during  which 
he  imitated  the  art  of  other  men,  attaining  the  freedom 
of  self-expression.  His  work  in  oil  followed  the 
same  course,  only  he  was  much  longer  in  coming  to 
his  own  in  it  than  in  water-colour.  He  began  by 
seeking  to  beat  earlier  landscape  painters,  both  of  his 
own  and  of  other  countries  ;  and  then  there  came  the 
confident  sense  of  triumph,  and  he  went  on  in  his  own 
way ;  although,  as  is  shown  by  his  leaving  to  the 
nation  by  his  will  two  of  his  own  oil  paintings  and  two 
by  Claude,  on  condition  that  they  should  hang  side  by 
side,  he  never  forgot  that  he  had  triumphed. 

Is  this  the  right  way  to  speak  about  these  things  ? 
I  have  been  trying  to  show  Turner's  point  of  view.  It 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  69 

cannot  be  said  to  have  been  wholly  a  generous  one. 
The  men  with  whom  he  entered  into  rivalry  might 
very  well  have  done  greater  things,  due  regard  being 
had  to  their  time  and  opportunity,  than  did  Turner, 
and  yet  he  might  have  excelled  them.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  attempt  an  estimate  of  the  relative  contributions 
to  art  of  such  men  as  the  Poussins,  Claude,  the  Dutch 
landscape  painters,  Wilson  and  Turner ;  but  the 
generations  of  artists  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  standing 
one  on  the  shoulders  of  another  so  that  the  topmost  of 
them  may  finally  shout,  and  wave  his  hand  in  triumph. 
There  was  something  too  much  of  this  in  Turner's 
attitude  towards  his  predecessors,  and  in  Ruskin's 
comparative  estimates  of  them  all.  ^Turner  started 
from  a  vantage-ground  his  predecessors  had  won  for 
him.  He  would  have  been  less  than  they  if  in  some 
ways  he  had  not  done  greater  things  than  they  did. 

Conversely,  it  may  be  said  that  he  might  in  some 
ways  do  less  things  than  they  and  yet  be  greater. 
There  is  a  serene  mastership  in  the  works  of  many  of 
the  earlier  painters,  a  doing  with  perfection  of  accom- 
plishment that  which  they  set  themselves  to  do,  that  is 
often  lacking  in  Turner's  work.  We  are  reminded  of 
what  Browning  makes  Andrea  del  Sarto  say — 

Ah,  but  a  man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp, 
Or  what's  a  heaven  for  ? 


70  TURNER 

What  Ruskin  chiefly  insists  upon  to  prove  Turner's 
superiority  over  all  his  predecessors  is  the  greater  truth- 
fulness to  nature  of  his  works,  his  more  imaginative 
interpretation  of  her  beauty  and  power.  He  only 
turned  to  oil  painting  when  he  had  learned  to  interpret 
nature  for  himself  in  water-colour.  Moonlight,  a  study 
at  Millbank,  which  was  in,  the  Academy  Exhibition  of 
1 797,  appears  to  have  been  his  first  exhibited  picture 
in  oil.  From  the  first  there  is  evident  the  endeavour 
more  fully  to  interpret  nature  than  any  of  his  predecessors 
had  done ;  and  the  endeavour,  the  struggle  we  might 
well  call  it,  was  continued  to  the  end.  Turner's  reach 
ever  exceeded  his  grasp.  He  was  never  long  content 
with  any  formula.  He  did  not  repeat,  over  and  over 
again,  one  particular  thing  that  the  critics  and  the 
public  had  acclaimed,  and  continued  to  acclaim.  It 
was  against  the  onslaught  of  the  critics  on  his  latest 
pictures  that  Ruskin  came  out  to  defend  him.  What 
is  it  that  makes  Turner's  pictures,  as  we  see  them  at 
the  National  Gallery  of  British  Art,  so  widely  different 
from  all  earlier  landscapes,  to  whatever  school  they  may 
belong  ?  It  is  that  whereas  all  other  landscape  painters 
had  been  content  to  take  just  so  much  from  nature  as 
was  well  within  the  compass  of  their  art,  Turner 
flung  himself  upon  nature  with  the  splendid  daring  of 
the  patriarch  wrestling  with  the  messenger  of  God, 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  71 

resolute  not  to  let  her  go  until  she  yielded  up  to  him 
her  every  secret.  And  if,  as  must  be,  not  even  a 
Turner  could  win  a  final  victory,  so  that  nothing  should 
be  left  for  others  to  achieve,  how  splendidly  he  wrestled, 
and  how  many  a  fall  he  won  ! 

The  oil  paintings  in  the  Turner  rooms  are  hung 
approximately  in  order  of  date.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  early  ones  and  the  late  ones  is  so  great  that 
they  might  easily  be  taken  for  the  work  of  two  different 
artists.  The  early  ones  are  heavy  and  sombre-looking  ; 
the  late  ones  are  brilliant  in  the  extreme.  There  is 
a  middle  period,  a  time  of  transition,  between  the  two. 
Confining  ourselves  at  the  moment  to  the  early  ones, 
among  which  may  be  mentioned,  Jason  in  Search  of  the 
Golden  Fleece,  Calais  Pier,  The  Shipwreck,  The  Goddess 
of  'Discord  in  the  Garden  of  the  Hesperides,  The  Death  of 
Nelson,  The  Sun  rising  in  a  Mist,  and  Apollo  killing  the 
Python,  we  note  that,  in  them,  Turner,  having  the 
old  masters  in  mind,  painting  in  rivalry  with  them,  and 
not  having  yet  begun,  even  in  water-colour,  to  attempt 
to  rival  the  brilliant  colour  of  nature,  was  content  with 
but  little  colour  and  with  low,  even  sombre  tones. 
The  pictures  are  impressive,  but  we  do  not  think  of 
them  as  beautiful. 

These  early  oil  paintings  were  soundly  painted,  and 
have  stood  the  test  of  time  much  better  than  the  later 


72  TURNER 

ones,  in  which  his  endeavour  to  obtain  the  greatest 
possible  brilliance  led  him,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
to  make  many  rash,  even  fatal,  experiments.  Redgrave 
instances  the  early  works  to  refute  Ruskin's  saying 
that  '  The  Academy  taught  Turner  nothing,  not  even 
the  one  thing  it  might  have  done — the  mechanical 
process  of  safe  oil  painting,  sure  vehicles,  and  permanent 
colours.'  It  is  certainly  hard  on  the  Academy  to  blame 
it  because  Turner  departed  from  a  safe,  academic 
technique  in  trying  new  ventures.  One  might  as  well 
blame  the  cartographers,  if  travellers  lose  their  way  in 
hitherto  unexplored  countries. 

In  1 80 1,  Turner  made  his  first  extensive  tour  in 
Scotland,  going  to  Edinburgh,  and  then  by  way  of 
Loch  Lomond  into  the  Western  Highlands.  The 
following  year  is  memorable  for  several  reasons.  It 
was  the  year,  as  we  have  already  seen,  of  Girtin's 
death.  It  was  the  year  of  Turner's  election  to  full 
membership  of  the  Royal  Academy.  In  it,  also,  he 
made  his  first  Continental  journey.  By  his  sketch- 
books and  his  completed  and  exhibited  works,  we  can 
follow  him  to  Calais,  where,  clearly,  he  was  as  keenly 
interested  in  his  new  experiences  as  any  schoolboy 
would  have  been  :  witness  the  varied  incidents  of  the 
people  and  the  shipping  in  Calais  Pier,  with  French 
Poissards  preparing  for  Sea — an  English  Packet  arriving, 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  73 

one  of  the  finest  of  his  early  oil  paintings.  It  was 
exhibited  in  the  following  year.  From  Calais  he 
travelled  into  the  south-east  of  F  ranee,  and  made 
studies  for  the  beautiful  Festival  upon  the  Opening  of  the 
Mintage  at  Macon,  Bonneville  and  Grenoble,  Geneva, 
Chamounix,  the  Val  d'Aosta,  the  Grand  St.  Bernard, 
the  St.  Gothard  Pass,  the  Bernese  Oberland,  Lucerne 
and  the  Rhine  are  some  of  the  principal  items  of  this 
tour.  He  had  now  only  to  see  Italy — but  how  much 
that  means  ! — and  he  would  have  seen  all  the  various 
types  of  scenery,  and  of  cities  and  people,  from  which 
the  material  for  his  pictures  was  to  be  taken,  except, 
of  course,  those  for  which  his  sources  were  other 
men's  records. 

Become  full  R.  A.,  Turner  evidently  felt  that  he  was 
now  a  person  of  some  importance.  He  had  already 
found  the  Maiden  Lane  bedroom  an  inadequate  studio, 
and  had  taken  one  in  Hand's  Court,  quite  close  by. 
Another  change  had  followed  his  associateship.  He 
went  to  the  house  No.  75  Morton  Street,  Portland 
Road.  Full  membership  demanded  still  greater  things. 
He  took  a  house  for  himself,  No.  64  Harley  Street  ; 
and  his  father,  now  an  elderly  man,  gave  up  the  Maiden 
Lane  business  and  went  to  live  with  his  son.  Removal 
to  a  fashionable  quarter  did  not  mean,  however,  that 
Turner  purposed  to  enter  into  the  world  of  fashion. 


74  TURNER 

Nothing  could  be  farther  from  our  tramp's  intentions. 
He  entered  into  no  social  relations  even  with  those 
who  were  now  his  fellow-Academicians.  They  had 
elected  him,  so  he  put  the  matter,  because  he  had  done 
good  work  as  a  painter  ;  and  he  intended  to  go  on 
doing  good  work,  and  still  better  work.  He  did  not 
even  trouble  to  thank  them  for  doing  the  thing  they  so 
obviously  ought  to  do.  He  said  to  his  father's  old 
customer  Stothard,  '  If  they  had  not  been  satisfied 
with  my  pictures  they  would  not  have  elected  me. 
Why  then  should  I  thank  them  ?  Why  thank  a  man 
for  performing  a  simple  duty  ?  '  Clearly  Turner  was 
not  equipped  for  the  social  amenities,  for  the  ordinary 
politenesses,  that  residence  in  Harley  Street  would 
usually  imply  ;  nor  did  his  residence  there  in  any  degree 
strengthen  his  equipment.  He  felt  that  an  R.A. 
must  have  his  headquarters  in  a  fashionable  street ;  but 
he  was  quite  contented  with  this  one  outward,  visible 
sign  of  his  greatness,  and  refused  to  trouble  himself 
about  any  of  the  others,  to  the  advantage,  in  most 
respects,  we  may  say,  of  his  art.  It  was  all-essential 
that  he  should  not  cease  to  be  a  tramp. 

During  the  next  few  years  he  did  not  wander  very 
far  afield.     He  was  now  at  work  upon  the  large,  early  N 
oil  paintings  already  mentioned.      Between    1803   and 
1807,   his  sketch-books  show   him   to  have  been   to 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  75 

Chester,  in  Sussex,  and  on  the  Thames,  from  Reading 
down  to  the  sea.  We  may  mention  here  that  the 
exhaustive  catalogue  of  the  drawings  in  the  Turner 
bequest,  prepared  by  direction  of  the  Trustees  of  the 
National  Gallery,  and  going  through  the  press  while 
these  pages  are  being  written,  will  enable  the  Turner 
student  closely  to  follow  his  wanderings  from  year  to 
year.  All  that  is  needful,  and  indeed  possible,  in 
such  a  book  as  this,  is  to  give  a  general  account  of 
those  wanderings  by  means  of  which  Turner  was  ever 
increasing  his  stores  of  knowledge,  and  of  memoranda 
which  he  could  afterwards  work  up  into  paintings  and 
water-colour  drawings. 

In  the  year  1808  he  was  appointed  Professor  of 
Perspective  to  the  Royal  Academy,  and  greatly  amused 
his  colleagues  by  adding  for  a  time  P.P.  as  well  as 
R.A.  to  the  signature  on  his  paintings.  His  early 
draftsman's  work  in  architects'  offices  was  now  stand- 
ing him  in  good  stead. 

In  the  year  previous  to  this  appointment  he  had 
commenced  an  undertaking  that  was  destined  to  have 
a  very  distinct  place  of  its  own  in  his  life-work. 
This  was  the  series  of  pen  and  wash  drawings  in 
brown,  prepared  for  reproduction  by  the  process  of 
mezzotint  engraving,  to  which  he  gave  the  title  Liber 
Studiorum.  His  great  French  predecessor  Claude 


76  TURNER 

had  made  a  practice  of  reproducing  his  pictures  in 
brown  as  he  finished  them.  These  drawings  he  kept 
by  him  as  memoranda  of  his  work,  and  on  them  he 
noted  for  whom  the  picture  had  been  painted.  By 
this  means  he  was  able  easily  to  detect  fraudulent 
imitations  of  his  works.  As  these  drawings  accumu- 
lated, they  formed  a  portfolio  or  book,  to  which  he 
gave  the  title  Libra  <F  Invenzioni  or  Libra  di  Verita. 
The  book  passed  through  various  hands  into  the 
Chatsworth  collection,  and  about  the  year  1774 — the 
year  previous  to  that  of  Turner's  birth — it  was  lent 
by  the  then  Duke  of  Devonshire  to  Richard  Earlom, 
an  engraver,  who  reproduced  the  drawings  in  brown, 
by  means  of  etching  and  mezzotint.  These  reproduc- 
tions were  published  under  the  title  Liber  Veritatis. 

This  was  the  work  with  which  Turner  entered  into 
rivalry.  It  is  obvious  that  the  conditions  of  the 
contest  were  utterly  unfair  to  Claude.  We  have  not 
to  take  into  account  merely  that  Turner  held  the 
advantage  of  a  large  unearned  increment  both  in  art 
and  in  the  study  of  nature.  Claude's  drawings  were, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  mere  memoranda  of  pictures  ; 
and  he  had  been  dead  nearly  a  hundred  years  before 
they  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  engraver.  Turner 
made  for  his  work  special  drawings  into  which  he 
threw  all  his  strength  ;  and,  beyond  this,  he  himself 


LIFE   AND    LIFE-WORK  77 

etched  some  of  the  plates  made  from  the  drawings, 
selected  his  own  mezzotint  engravers,  and  super- 
intended their  work.  Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  he 
chose  his  own  ground  for  a  contest  in  which  a  dead 
man  was  represented  by  a  self-elected  substitute  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  clear  Turner  of  the  charge  of 
some  lack  of  generosity,  even  of  justice,  in  this  rivalry 
with  Claude.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  Claude's  merit  was  very  much  over-rated 
by  critics  of  Sir  George  Beaumont's  type,  whereby 
not  only  was  there  a  risk  of  artists  going  to  him,  and 
not  to  nature,  for  inspiration,  but  the  work  of  living 
artists,  based  upon  a  richer  interpretation  of  nature 
than  was  possible  in  Claude's  day,  was  apt  to  be 
depreciated. 

It  is  significant  also  that  the  project  of  the  Liber 
did  not  wholly,  or  even,  perhaps,  mainly,  originate 
with  Turner.  It  was  discussed  by  him  with  a 
brother-artist,  William  Frederick  Wells,  a  member 
of  the  Water  Colour  Society,  whose  daughter  says 
that  Turner  took  up  the  scheme  entirely  on  her  father's 
persuasion.  It  is  possible  therefore  to  emphasise,  not 
the  rivalry  with  Claude,  but  the  over-estimation  of 
him  by  the  critics,  which  was  felt  by  other  artists 
than  Turner  to  be  an  injustice  to  themselves. 

Mr.    Wells'    daughter    also   states    that  her   father 


78  TURNER 

suggested  the  six  divisions  of  subjects  that  Turner 
adopted  for  the  work  :  Historical,  Pastoral,  Elegant 
Pastoral,  Mountain,  Marine  and  Architectural. 
Whether  this  be  so  or  not,  it  is  clear  that  Turner 
knew  his  work  to  include  something  more  than  land- 
scape, in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  word.  It  is 
also  clear  that  he  knew  himself  to  be  issuing  to  the 
public  a  definite  apologia  for  the  art  of  his  own  day, 
and  his  own  art  in  particular. 

The  way  in  which  the  business  part  of  the  scheme 
was  carried  out  is  not  very  pleasant  reading.  Turner 
had  sundry  quarrels  with  his  engravers,  in  which  he 
appears  often  to  have  been  in  fault.  He  was  his  own 
publisher,  and  he  would  have  done  better  to  put  the 
job  out,  as  the  working-man  said  to  the  parliamentary 
candidate  who  introduced  himself  as  a  self-made  man. 
The  first  number  of  the  work  appeared  in  1 807.  Others 
were  issued  at  irregular  intervals  until  1819,  seventy- 
one  plates  being  published  in  all  ;  and  then  the 
publication  came  to  an  end  for  lack  of  the  public 
support  that  Turner  had  not  taken  the  best  means  to 
obtain — had  rather  acted  so  as  certainly  not  extensively 
to  obtain.  There  were  to  have  been  one  hundred 
plates  in  the  complete  work  ;  and  most  of  the  re- 
mainder, after  those  actually  published,  had  been 
carried  far  towards  completion.  Probably  lack  of 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  79 

appreciation  was  not  the  only  reason  for  the  stoppage 
of  the  work.  On  this  point  Mr.  Frank  Short  says, 
4  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  during  the  twelve 
years  the  Liber  was  being  produced  (1807-19) 
Turner  matured  his  art  rapidly.  At  the  time  it  was 
begun  he  painted  with  a  very  limited  range  of  colour, 
and  it  is  conceivable  that  at  this  stage  of  his  career  he 
was  more  satisfied  with  "black  and  white"  than  later, 
when  he  was  beginning  to  feel  his  strength  in  powerful 
colour.  Black  and  white  skilfully  managed  can  be 
made  to  suggest  a  good  deal  of  colour,  but  to  a  strong 
colourist  it  must  always  be  a  very  restricted  mode 
of  expression.  So  I  think  it  is  fair  to  suppose 
that  in  straining  its  resources  very  hard  Turner  lost 
patience,  and  thought  how  much  better  he  could 
employ  his  time  with  painting ;  and  this,  I  think, 
would  be  a  very  strong  reason  for  not  carrying  out  his 
entire  plan.'  Another  reason  that  has  been  suggested 
is  that  by  1819  Turner  found  a  much  readier  sale  for 
his  pictures  than  he  had  done  in  1807  ;  so  that  there 
was  no  pecuniary  inducement  to  complete  the  Liber. 

He  spared  no  pains  to  secure  the  best  results  in  the 
engravings  ;  and,  in  the  pursuit  of  excellence,  of  the 
most  subtle  rendering  of  effects,  the  resources  of  the 
art  were,  as  Mr.  Short  says,  strained  to  the  utmost. 
There  are  notes  by  Turner  in  the  margin  of  some 


8o  TURNER 

of  the  engraver's  proofs  which  show  that  he  was  not 
satisfied  until  exactly  the  effect  he  wanted  had  been 
obtained.  We  may  quote  one  of  them  to  show  to  what 
minute  details  his  care  extended.  It  is  on  a  proof 
of  The  Little  Devil's  Bridge.  '  A  slight  indication 
of  a  ray  of  bursting  light  under  the  bridge  would 
improve  that  part,  and  a  few  sharp  white  touches  upon 
the  leaves  marked  X,  because  they  are  now  two  black 
spots  without  connection  with  the  stems  of  the  trees.' 
Here  is  a  sensibility  almost  fit  to  be  compared  with 
that  of  the  princess  in  the  fairy  tale,  who  could  not 
sleep  because  of  the  lump  made  by  a  pea  placed  under 
seven  feather  beds.  We  have  only  to  think  of  this 
fine  musical  sense  as  coming  into  play  instinctively  in 
the  water-colour  drawings  to  understand  why  they  are 
so  delicately  beautiful. 

There  is  a  solemn  tone  in  the  Liber  plates,  to  which, 
it  may  be  said,  the  dark  monochrome  lent  itself.  Here 
again  a  true  artistic  instinct  asserts  itself.  Ruskin  saw 
in  this  solemnity  evidence  of  Turner's  pessimistic  view 
of  human  life  and  labour.  '  Observe,'  he  says,  in  the 
course  of  an  often  quoted  passage,  '  the  two  disordered 
and  poor  farm-yards,  cart  and  ploughshare,  and  harrow 
rotting  away ;  note  the  pastoral  by  the  brookside,  with 
its  neglected  stream,  and  haggard  trees,  and  bridge 
with  the  broken  rail ;  and  decrepit  children,  fever- 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  81 

struck,  one  sitting  stupidly  by  the  stagnant  stream,  the 
other  in  rags  and  with  an  old  man's  hat  on,  and  lame, 
leaning  on  a  stick.  Then  the  Hedging  and  Ditching, 
with  its  bleak  sky  and  blighted  trees,  hacked  and  bitten, 
and  starved  by  the  clay  soil  into  something  between  trees 
and  fire- wood ;  its  meanly  faced,  sickly  labourers, 
pollard  labourers,  like  the  willow  trunk  they  hew  ; 
and  the  slatternly  peasant  woman,  with  worn  cloak  and 
battered  bonnet — an  English  dryad.'  If  this  were 
really  what  Turner  recorded  we  might  take  the  plates 
to  be  a  comment  on  the  effect  of  Napoleonic  wars  on 
the  English  peasantry.  But  Ruskin  will  not  let  us 
off  so  easily  as  that.  Because  Turner  painted  the 
mill,  and  not  the  convent,  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse, 
it  must  be  because  he  had  '  no  sympathy  with  the 
hope,  no  mercy  for  the  indolence  of  the  monk.' 
'  Such  are  the  lessons  of  the  Liber  Studiorum,'  we  are 
told.  We  want  a  footnote  by  the  later  Ruskin  with- 
drawing this  pessimism.  There  is  plenty  of  cheerful- 
ness in  the  Liber.  The  fisherman  near  Blair  Athol 
looks  quite  sprightly ;  the  only  melancholy  in  the 
Sheepwashing  is  that  of  the  washed  sheep — quite  tem- 
porary ;  the  bathers  in  the  pool  below  the  Falls 
of  Clyde  may  be  set  off  against  the  child  sitting  by 
the  stagnant  pool  ;  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke,  who  shares 
to  some  extent  Ruskin's  view  of  the  general  melan- 
G 


82  TURNER 

choly  of  the  Liber,  saying  that  it  is  rare  to  find 
Turner  dwelling  on  the  joy  rather  than  the  sorrow 
of  man,  nevertheless  admits  that  '  The  Castle  above  the 
Meadows  is  a  pretty  plate,  gracious  and  cheerful,  and  the 
herd-boy  who  pipes  on  the  grass,  so  much  for  his  own 
pleasure  and  absorbed  in  his  music,  gives  the  key-note 
to  the  warm  and  happy  place,  and  tells  us  what  Turner 
felt.'  May  we  recall,  in  order  finally  to  reassure 
ourselves,  that  the  later  Ruskin,  the  Ruskin  of  Fors 
Clavigera,  could  say  that  there  was  more  joy  than 
sorrow  in  the  world  if  we  knew  where  to  look  for  it  ? 
Taken  together,  with  the  variety  of  subject  sug- 
gested by  the  six  divisions  already  mentioned,  the 
Liber  plates  are  a  compendium  of  Turner's  outlook 
upon  life  and  nature.  It  was  more  probably  of  this, 
than  of  any  idea  of  their  being  taken  as  a  jeremiad, 
that  he  was  thinking  when,  on  hearing  of  anyone's 
trying  to  get  one  or  other  of  the  subjects  as  especially 
beautiful,  he  said,  '  What  is  the  use  of  them  but 
together  ? '  Certainly,  with  reference  to  the  criticism 
of  life  in  them,  we  shall  give  the  right  answer  to  his 
question  by  taking  the  gay  along  with  the  grave.  To 
some  of  the  subjects  we  shall  have  to  refer  hereafter. 
In  this  little  book  we  cannot  discuss  the  beauty  and 
the  meaning  of  all  the  plates  ;  but  we  can  say  that  the 
Liber  is  worth  study  as  a  whole,  for  the  sake  of  its  art, 


LIFE   AND    LIFE-WORK  83 

of  its  interpretation  of  nature,  and,  whether  we  may 
think  it  has  little  or  much  to  teach  us,  of  the  interest  it 
shows  in  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  human  life. 

Returning  to  the  years  immediately  following  the 
initiation  of  the  Liber,  we  find  Turner,  in  1811, 
going  for  the  first  time  to  Devon,  where  he  made  his 
notes  for  the  Ivy  Bridge,  and,  as  already  mentioned, 
for  Crossing  the  Brook.  Shortly  afterwards  he  was 
again  in  Derbyshire  and  the  North,  and,  a  little  later, 
in  Devon  again.  About  this  time  we  also  find 
sketches  in  Wharfedale,  mention  of  which  suggests 
a  reference  to  his  friendship  with  Mr.  Walter  Fawkes 
of  Farnley  Hall.  They  appear  to  have  become 
acquainted  through  the  medium  of  Dr.  Whitaker. 

All  Turner  enthusiasts  must,  sooner  or  later,  find 
their  way  to  Farnley.  One  seems  to  understand 
Turner  better  after  a  visit  there.  And  assuredly  the 
best  way  to  make  the  visit,  the  most  Turnerian  way,  is 
to  tramp  there  over  the  moors,  as  the  writer  has  done, 
getting  a  simple  meal  in  a  hamlet,  and  then  going 
down  through  the  trees  to  where  the  hall  stands  part 
way  up  the  hillside  above  the  left  bank  of  the  Wharfe. 
The  drawing  of  Farnley  and  the  moors  beyond  it,  as 
seen  from  the  hillside  above  Otley  on  the  other  side  of 
the  river,  hurts  the  lover  of  Wharfedale  just  a  little, 
perhaps,  because  Turner,  we  hope  only  with  the 


84  TURNER 

aim  of  giving  in  a  small  drawing  some  sense  of 
the  wide  spaciousness  of  the  scene,  has  made  us  think 
of  Switzerland  as  well  as  of  Yorkshire.  We  do  not 
really  want  the  fir-trees  and  the  goats  ;  and  there  is 
rather  more  exaggeration  of  height  than  is  necessary 
for  a  true  impression.  Apart  from  these  things  it  is 
Wharfedale  that  we  see. 

Turner  was  always  happy  at  Farnley,  where  he  was 
a  frequent  visitor,  for  Mr.  Fawkes  understood  him, 
and  let  him  have  his  own  way.  He  was  fond  of 
fishing,  and  the  Wharfe  gave  him  plenty  of  sport. 
We  have  already  seen  how  much  he  delighted  in  the 
scenery  of  the  Dales.  On  such  good  terms  were  he 
and  his  host,  that  the  latter  could  even  venture  to  ask 
to  see  him  at  work  on  a  drawing — a  request  that 
perhaps  not  another  who  knew  him  would  have  ven- 
tured to  make.  The  drawing  that  was  the  outcome 
of  this  request  is  one  of  the  things  that  have  made  me 
say  one  understands  Turner  better  after  going  to  Farn- 
ley. I  have  sat  in  a  room  in  a  house  in  Paris,  in 
which  were  impressionist  pictures  of  the  room  itself, 
and  have  found  a  comparison  of  the  pictures  with  the 
room  and  its  contents  a  useful  study  in  the  methods  of 
impressionism.  But  the  drawing  that  Turner  did  for 
Mr.  Fawkes  was  not  of  anything  immediately  to  be 
seen  at  Farnley  or  in  the  neighbourhood.  Its  subject 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  85 

was  a  first-rate  man-of-war  taking  in  stores ;  and 
Turner  had  no  memoranda  to  guide  him  in  making  it. 
In  about  two  hours  and  a  half,  according  to  Mr. 
Fawkes'  account  of  what  he  saw,  after  numerous 
washings  in  and  washings  out,  after,  indeed,  total 
immersion  of  the  paper  in  water,  and  then  sundry 
scrapings,  there  came  into  view  a  subtle  drawing  of 
the  great  hull  and  the  lower  part  of  the  masts  and 
rigging  of  the  warship,  with  lighters  in  attendance  on 
her,  and  crisp  wavelets  playing  about  her  bow,  other 
vessels  away  in  the  distance,  and  the  whole  scene 
bathed  in  shimmering  light.  After  seeing  this  draw- 
ing, in  the  place  where  it  was  made,  so  far  away  from 
sea  and  ships,  one  understands  better — though  it  still 
remains  somewhat  in  the  regions  of  faith — when 
looking  at  the  numerous  sketches  and  finished  drawings 
in  colour,  at  the  National  Gallery  and  elsewhere,  that 
all  Turner  usually  did  on  the  spot  was  to  make  out- 
lines and  notes  in  pencil. 

Dr.  Whitaker  and  Mr.  Fawkes  were  far  from 
being  the  only  people  from  whom  Turner  obtained 
commissions.  The  Marquis  of  Stafford,  Sir  John 
Leicester,  afterwards  Lord  de  Tabley,  the  Earls  of 
Yarborough,  Egremont,  Essex  and  Lonsdale,  and 
Sir  John  Soane  were  among  those  who  gave  him 
commissions  or  bought  pictures  from  him.  At  a 


86  TURNER 

later  date  he  had  a  staunch  friend  in  Mr.  Munro  of 
Novar.  Turner  never  lacked  those  very  useful 
friends,  people  who  were  ready  to  exchange  their 
money  for  the  products  of  his  art,  from  the  days 
when  his  earliest  drawings  were  sold  out  of  his 
father's  shop-window.  The  fact  that  he  left 
£  1 40,000  at  his  death  is  often  quoted  to  refute 
Ruskin's  statement  that  his  genius  had  not  been 
appreciated.  Even  those  who  value  most  Ruskin's 
interpretation  of  Turner's  art  will  admit  that  the 
young  '  Graduate  of  Oxford '  did  not  discover  him. 

We  must  pass  lightly  here  over  biographical  details 
that  do  not  materially  affect  Turner's  art.  In  1812 
he  left  Harley  Street  for  a  house  in  Queen  Anne 
Street,  which  continued  to  be  his  headquarters  during 
the  rest  of  his  life.  In  1814  he  built  a  villa  at 
Twickenham,  to  which  he  gave  the  significant  name 
Solus  Lodge,  afterwards  changed  to  Sandycombe 
Lodge.  Perhaps  the  alteration  was  made  because, 
while  at  Twickenham,  he  became  quite  surprisingly 
sociable,  particularly  with  a  vicar  in  the  neighbourhood, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Trimmer,  whom  he  afterwards  made  one 
of  his  executors. 

Thornbury  tells  amusing  stories  of  Turner's  father  at 
this  time  :  how  he  took  shillings  from  visitors  to  the 
studio,  which  he  went  to  open  every  day,  saving 


LIFE  AND   LIFE-WORK  87 

the  cost  of  conveyance  between  Twickenham  and 
town  by  walking  or  by  getting  free  lifts  on  a  market 
gardener's  cart.  Father  and  son  were  always  on  good 
terms.  The  old  man  used  to  prepare  the  painter's 
canvases  and  varnish  the  finished  pictures,  which  drew 
from  Turner  the  jocular  saying  that  his  father  began 
and  completed  his  works.  Their  home-life  was  of  the 
simplest — deal  table,  horn-handled  knives,  mugs, 
figure  in  the  accounts  of  it.  Talent  now,  and  perhaps 
then,  would  scorn  what  was  quite  good  enough  for 
genius. 

The  Napoleonic  wars  alone  would  prevent  Turner 
for  several  years  from  travelling  on  the  Continent ;  but 
even  had  this  obstacle  not  been  in  the  way,  he  had 
plenty  of  work  to  keep  him  fully  occupied  at  home. 
He  had  many  drawings  to  make  for  the  Liber  and 
other  publications,  and  the  engraving  of  them  to 
superintend.  His  work  in  water-colour  was  much 
more  extensive  than  that  in  oil ;  though,  between  181 1 
and  1818,  he  produced  a  number  of  oil  paintings, 
including  one  or  two  of  the  very  finest.  To  the  first- 
named  year,  in  which  we  have  seen  that  he  painted  Apollo 
Killing  the  Python,  belongs  also  the  beautiful  Mercury 
and  Herse.  Themes  so  diverse  as  Snowstorm :  Hanni- 
bal and  his  Army  Crossing  the  Alps,  Cottage  Destroyed  by 
an  Avalanche,  and  Ivy  Bridge,  Devonshire,  were  treated 


88  TURNER 

in  the  following  year.  To  1813  belong  the  sym- 
pathetic, almost  realistic  pictures  A  Frosty  ^Morning, 
Sunrise  and  The  Deluge.  A  Carthage  picture,  Dido 
and  &neas  leaving  Carthage^  and  a  classical  composition 
Apuleia  in  search  of  Apuleius,  appeared  in  1814.  In 
the  following  year  came  Crossing  the  Broo^  and  Dido 
building  Carthage.  The  former  has  already  been 
incidentally  mentioned.  The  morning  after  Turner  and 
his  friend  Cyrus  Redding  had  slept  in  the  inn,  the 
latter  pointed  out  to  Turner  a  view  along  the  valley  of 
the  Tamar  as  a  good  subject  for  a  picture.  A  few 
pencil  notes  served  at  the  moment,  and  the  picture 
was  painted  afterwards  in  London.  It  is  a  beautiful, 
if  slightly  idealised  and  conventional  rendering  of  a 
typical  English  scene ;  and  the  gradations  of  tone  by 
means  of  which  the  landscape  is  made  to  fade  away 
into  the  far-off,  hazy  distance  are  marvellously  subtle. 
It  is  remarkable  also  for  the  stateliness  of  its  design, 
and  its  quietly  harmonious  colour.  The  Dido  building 
Carthage  is  hung  beside  a  Claude,  according  to  the 
direction  in  Turner's  will.  It  has  a  fine  sky,  full  of 
hazy  light,  and  much  classical  architecture  of  a  scenic 
description.  A  companion  picture,  The  Decline  of 
Carthage,  painted  in  1817,  has  also  a  glowing  sky. 
They  both  show  that  Turner's  mastery  of  light  was 
increasing.  But  they  are  only  melodrama.  Ruskin 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  89 

roundly  condemned  them  as  '  nonsense  pictures,'  and 
said  of  the  latter,  '  It  is,  in  fact,  little  more  than  an 
accumulation  of  Academy  students'  outlines,  coloured 
brown.'  Still,  though  these  pictures  be  not  the  best 
'Turner,'  no  one  but  Turner  could  have  painted  them. 

Between  1 8 1 6  and  1 8 1 8,  he  was  still  working  chiefly 
at  home ;  and  we  find  him  in  Sussex,  Yorkshire  and 
southern  Scotland.  In  1817  he  made  a  tour  that  in- 
cluded Waterloo  and  the  Rhine,  one  outcome  of  which 
was  that  grandiose  failure,  The  Field  of  Waterloo.  We 
have  always  reason  to  be  thankful  if  Turner  escapes  from 
a  figure-subject  without  meeting  disaster.  Apollo  and 
the  T*ython  is  an  oasis  in  the  wilderness.  In  1819  he 
found  time  for  a  journey  to  Italy,  and,  in  his  sketch-books 
and  drawings,  we  can  follow  him  to  Turin,  the  lakes  of 
Como,  Lugano  and  Maggiore,  and  Venice,  Ancona, 
Rimini,  Rome,  Albano,  Nemi,  Tivoli,  Naples, 
Pompeii.  On  his  return  journey  he  passed  through 
Florence,  and  crossed  the  Alps  by  the  Simplon  Pass. 

The  date  of  this  journey  marks  a  critical  point  in 
Turner's  career  :  the  abandonment  of  reserved  colour 
for  colour  continually  increasing  in  brilliance.  The 
change  is  immediately  seen  in  the  oil  paintings  of 
1820,  Rome  from  the  Vatican  and  Rome  :  the  Arch  of 
Titus,  and  again  in  the  glowing  Bay  of  Saief,  Apollo 
and  the  Sibyl  of  1823. 


90  TURNER 

We  may  conveniently  describe  here  Turner's  later 
method  of  oil  painting.  Going  forward  from  the 
point  that  Girtin  and  he  had  reached  together,  Turner 
had  learned  to  obtain  in  water-colour  such  delicately 
beautiful  colour  and  such  subtle  effects  of  light  and 
atmosphere  that  he  became  ill-content  with  the  lack  of 
scope  afforded  in  these  respects  by  the  method  of 
oil  painting  which  he  had  employed  hitherto.  He 
had  done  with  rivalling  the  old  masters  on  their  own 
ground,  and  set  himself  to  rival  in  oil  his  own  great 
achievement  in  water-colour.  He  covered  his  canvas 
with  a  white  ground,  over  which  he  scumbled  and 
glazed  his  pigments  so  thinly  that  they  were  almost 
transparent,  and  the  white  ground  told  beneath  them 
like  the  white  paper  over  which  the  transparent  washes 
of  colour  are  taken  in  a  water-colour  drawing.  He 
ran  the  utmost  risks  in  the  endeavour  to  rival  the  effect 
of  nature's  brilliant  light  and  colour.  He  used  to- 
gether media  of  quite  different  drying  quality,  and 
even  used  water-colour  along  with  oil.  By  such 
means  as  these  he  obtained  marvellous  effects  of 
colour  and  light ;  but  there  could  be  no  perma- 
nence for  pictures  so  painted,  and  we  can  only  guess  at 
what  many  of  them  were  when  they  left  his  easel,  or 
after  he  had  worked  on  them  at  the  Academy  on  var- 
nishing day,  as  to  which  Redgrave  says,  '  At  these 


LIFE   AND    LIFE-WORK  91 

times  such  was  his  love  of  colour  that  any  rich  tint  on 
a  brother  painter's  palette  so  tempted  him  that  he  would 
jokingly  remove  a  large  portion  of  it  to  his  own  and 
immediately  apply  it  to  his  picture,  irrespective  of  the 
medium  with  which  it  was  made  up.  From  our  own 
palette  he  has  whisked  off,  on  more  occasions  than  one, 
a  luscious  knob  of  orange  vermilion,  or  ultramarine, 
tempered  with  copal,  and  at  once  used  it  on  a  picture 
he  was  at  work  upon  with  a  mastic  magylph.  Such 
a  practice,  productive  of  no  mischief  at  the  moment, 
would  break  up  a  picture  when  the  harder  drier  began 
to  act  on  that  which  was  of  a  less  contractile  nature.' 
As  was  said  on  an  earlier  page,  the  Academy  cannot 
be  blamed  because  Turner  did  such  things  as  these. 
He  was  simply  flying  in  the  face  of  well-understood 
elementary  facts  as  to  the  nature  of  pigments,  and  any 
student  could  have  told  him  what  the  effect  would  be. 
In  the  unfinished  oil  paintings  now  exhibited  at  the 
National  Gallery  of  British  Art  we  can  see  exactly 
what  was  his  method.  In  some  of  them,  such  as 
Sunrise  with  a  Boat  between  Headlands  and  Norham 
Castle,  Sunrise,  the  white  ground  is  barely  covered. 
In  the  former,  filmy  blue  and  gold  are  playing  over  the 
surface,  with  a  touch  of  scarlet  to  suggest  how  the 
colour-scheme  is  to  be  completed.  In  the  latter  there 
are  blue,  gold,  and  delicate  rose  and  green,  while  a 


92  TURNER 

touch  of  dark  brown  on  the  cow  in  the  river  secures 
bv  contrast  the  feeling  of  glowing  light.  From 
paintings  thus  just  begun  we  can  pass  through  others 
more  complete  to  those  in  which  the  final  effect  is 
practically  obtained,  such  as  the  beautiful  Evening 
Star,  a  solemn  harmony  of  blue-grey,  faded  gold  and 
rose  in  the  sky,  a  dark  blue  tone  in  the  sea,  and  greyish 
brown  in  the  sand  of  the  foreground.  Ruskin  put 
aside  these  works  because  they  were  unfinished.  Every 
student  of  Turner  is  grateful  for  their  having  been 
brought  to  light.  We  have  now  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  the  privilege  that  his  contemporaries  desired 
in  vain  :  we  can  see  the  painter  at  work  in  his  studio, 
the  colour-musician  composing — it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  we  can  see  the  magician  weaving  his  spell. 

His  drawings  in  these  years  were  nearly  all  made  to 
be  handed  over  to  the  engraver,  and  he  was  occupied 
not  merely  with  the  drawings  themselves,  but  in 
superintending  their  reproduction.  We  have  already 
seen,  in  connexion  with  the  Liber  Studiorum,  how 
minutely  critical  he  was  of  the  engraver's  work,  and 
all  the  engraver's  proofs  in  connexion  with  the 
numerous  series  of  his  drawings  that  were  reproduced, 
had  to  be  submitted  to  him  to  receive  his  notes  and 
corrections  often  many  times  before  he  was  satisfied 
and  would  pass  them.  This,  of  course,  necessitated 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  93 

his  working  on  the  proofs  themselves.  Turner  was, 
indeed,  not  merely  doing  his  own  painter's  work,  but 
was  training  a  whole  school  pf  engravers  in  the 
interpretation  of  works  in  colour  in  terms  of  black 
and  white.  Clearly,  he  had  little  leisure  for  the 
exacting  pleasures  of  London  society,  even  if  he  had 
any  inclination  for  them. 

In  1824  began  the  publication  of  the  'Rivers  of 
England '  series,  Turner's  drawings  for  which  in- 
clude some  of  his  finest  works,  such  as  Totnes  on  the 
Dart,  Kirkstall  Abbey^  and  Norham  Castle.  Draw- 
ings by  Girtin  and  other  artists  were  included  in  the 
series,  and  Turner's  own  work  in  it  did  not  wholly 
belong  to  the  period  of  publication.  In  1826  he 
commenced  the  '  Picturesque  Views  in  England  and 
Wales,'  for  which  he  made  over  a  hundred  drawings. 
The  scheme  was  an  ambitious  one,  like  others  upon 
which  he  entered,  far  too  ambitious  to  be  adequately 
carried  through.  What  Turner  accomplished  is 
wonderful  enough.  It  is  difficult  to  realise  that  it  was 
the  work  of  one  man's  lifetime.  What  he  desired  to 
do  was  more  wonderful  still.  He  wanted  to  make 
this  series  an  exhaustive  Turnerian  record  of  every 
variety  of  English  and  Welsh  scenery — mountain, 
moor,  river,  lake,  and  sea-coast  were  to  be  included, 
so  were  towns  and  buildings,  cathedral  cities,  country 


94  TURNER 

towns,  ruined  castles  and  abbeys,  and  all  these  not  in 
any  merely  topographical  way,  but  the  various  draw- 
ings were  to  illustrate  all  the  varieties  of  effect  pro- 
duced by  differences  of  time  and  weather.  Hamerton 
takes  trouble  to  show  how  little  of  all  this  programme 
Turner  actually  carried  out,  that  there  are  so  many  abbeys 
and  castles  to  so  few  cathedrals,  only  one  mountain,  and 
neither  a  forest  nor  a  trout-stream.  This  is  true 
enough.  Turner  set  out  upon  his  task  as  if  he  had 
several  lifetimes  at  disposal.  He  could  not  have 
hoped  to  complete  it  except  in  the  limited  form  of 
studious  selection,  and  this  was  not  his  way.  His 
reach  was  ever  exceeding  his  grasp.  The  work 
remains  a  fragment.  But,  when  we  patch  together  all 
Turner's  fragments  of  this  kind,  if  even  then  they  do 
not  prove  a  whole,  they  afford  a  wealth  of  illustration 
of  British  scenery  such  as  has  hardly  entered  into  the 
waking  dreams  of  any  other  artist. 

In  1826,  Turner  announced  the  publication  of  a 
series  of  mezzotint  engravings  by  Thomas  Lupton, 
from  original  drawings  of  his  own  of  the  ports  of 
England.  Twelve  plates  only  were  completed.  In 
the  preface  to  the  republication  of  the  plates  thirty 
years  later,  with  his  introduction  and  notes,  under  the 
title,  'The  Harbours  of  England,'  Ruskin  says, 
'  Had  one  of  the  parties  in  the  arrangement  been  a 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  95 

mere  plodding  man  of  business  the  work  would  have 
proceeded,  but  between  the  two  men  of  talent  it  came 
very  naturally  to  a  stand.'  Even  so,  we  do  not  get 
twelve  ports  illustrated,  for  places  that  cannot  even  by 
courtesy  be  considered  ports  or  harbours  are  included, 
the  series  being  Dover,  Ramsgate,  Plymouth,  Cat- 
water,  Sheerness,  Margate,  Portsmouth,  Falmouth, 
Sidmouth,  Whitby,  Deal  and  Scarborough.  The 
colour,  in  the  drawings,  was  restrained,  but  beautifully 
modulated,  as  in  the  Whitby,  in  which  we  have  a 
harmony  in  blue  and  pearly  grey,  green,  rose  and  orange. 
In  1828  Turner  was  in  Italy  again,  travelling  by 
way  of  the  South  of  France,  Genoa  and  Florence, 
to  Rome.  He  indulged  so  little  in  correspondence, 
doubtless  because  it  was  difficult  to  him,  and  also 
because  his  pen  and  pencil  were  always  so  busily 
occupied,  that  when  there  are  letters  of  his  that  show 
us  the  man  as  we  cannot  see  him  through  his  paintings, 
they  are  not  to  be  passed  over  in  any  biography  of 
him.  Two  such  letters  belong  to  this  tour.  They 
are  both  dated  from  Rome.  One  is  to  his  fellow- 
Academician  Jones,  and  in  it  he  says,  'Two  months 
nearly  in  getting  to  this  terra  pictura,  and  at  ivork ; 
but  the  length  of  time  is  my  own  fault.  I  must  see 
the  South  of  France,  which  almost  knocked  me  up, 
the  heat  was  so  intense,  particularly  at  Nismes  and 


96  TURNER 

Avignon  ;  and  until  I  got  a  plunge  into  the  sea  at 
Marseilles,  I  felt  so  weak  that  nothing  but  the  change 
of  scene  kept  me  onwards  to  my  distant  point.  Genoa, 
and  all  the  sea-coast  from  Nice  to  Spezzia,  is  remark- 
ably rugged  and  fine ;  so  is  Massa.  Tell  that  fat 
fellow  Chantrey  that  I  did  think  of  him,  then  (but  not 
the  first  or  the  last  time)  of  the  thousands  he  had  made 
out  of  those  marble  crags  which  only  afforded  me  a 
sour  bottle  of  wine  and  a  sketch  ;  but  he  deserves 
everything  that  is  good,  though  he  did  give  me  a  fit  of 
the  spleen  at  Carrara.' 

The  second  letter  is  to  Chantrey,  and  must  be 
quoted  in  full  : — 

'  My  dear  Chantrey, — I  intended  long  before  this 
(but  you  will  say  Fudge !)  to  have  written  ;  but  even 
now  very  little  information  have  I  to  give  you  in 
matters  of  Art,  for  I  have  confined  myself  to  the 
painting  department  at  Corso ;  and  having  finished 
one,  am  about  the  second,  and  getting  on  with  Lord 
E.'s ;  but  as  the  folk  here  talked  that  I  would  show 
them  not,  I  finished  a  small  three  feet  four  to  stop 
their  gabbling.  So  now  to  business.  Sculpture,  of 
course,  first  ;  for  it  carries  away  all  the  patronage  in 
Rome ;  but  all  seem  to  share  in  the  goodwill  of 
the  patrons  of  the  day.  Gott's  studio  is  full. 
Wyatt  and  Rennie,  Ewing,  Buxton  all  employed. 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  97 

Gibson  has  two  groups  in  hand,  l^enus  and  Cupid, 
and  The  Rape  of  Hylas,  three  figures,  very  forward, 
though  I  doubt  much  if  it  will  be  in  time  (taking  the 
long  voyage  into  the  scale)  for  the  Exhibition,  though 
it  is  for  England.  Its  style  is  something  like  the 
Psyche,  being  two  standing  figures  of  nymphs  leaning, 
enamoured,  over  the  young  Hylas,  with  his  pitcher. 
The  Venus  is  a  sitting  figure,  with  Cupid  in  attend- 
ance ;  and  if  it  had  wings  like  a  dove,  to  flee  away 
and  be  at  rest,  the  rest  would  not  be  the  worse  for  the 
change.  Thorwalsden  is  closely  engaged  on  the  late 
Pope's  (Pius  VII)  monument.  Portraits  of  the 
superior  animal,  man,  is  to  be  found  in  all.  In  some, 
the  inferior — viz.,  greyhounds  and  poodles,  cats  and 
monkeys,  etc.  etc. 

'  Pray  give  my  remembrances  to  Jones  and  Stokes, 
and  tell  him  I  have  not  seen  a  bit  of  coal  stratum  for 
months.  My  love  to  Mrs.  Chantrey,  and  take  the 
same  and  good  wishes  of 

'  Yours  most  truly, 

<J.  M.  W.  TURNER.' 

There  are  several  interesting  things  in  these  letters 

apart  from  their  faulty  grammar.      There  was  plenty 

of  the  boy  left   in  Turner  even  at  fifty-three.      He 

wants  bracing   up,   so   he   has  a  swim  in   the  sea  at 

H 


98  TURNER 

Marseilles !  Both  letters  are  brimming  over  with  fun. 
Some  ordinary  people  may  be  glad  to  find  that  genius 
is  not  above  making  puns.  Evidently  a  very  friendly, 
really  affectionate  feeling  subsisted  between  him  and 
some  of  his  colleagues.  He  was  particularly  attached 
to  Chantrey,  of  whose  bequest  to  the  nation  it  is 
impossible  not  to  think  when  he  and  Turner  are 
mentioned  together.  The  second  letter  brings  vividly 
before  us  the  kind  of  entourage  that  Turner  would 
have  in  Rome  at  that  time  :  Gibson's  Hylas  and  the 
Nymphs  perhaps  not  going  to  be  ready  for  the  next 
Academy  Exhibition !  Turner  did  well  to  free 
himself  as  much  as  he  did  from  classical  influence. 
It  is  because  he  came  and  remained  so  much  under  it, 
and  because  Constable  never  came  under  it,  that  the 
latter  seems  to  us  so  much  more  modern  than  Turner. 
Would  it  have  been  better  for  Turner  if  he  had  never 
seen  more  of  Italy  than  Venice  ?  We  should  not  like 
to  be  without  the  beautiful  topographical  drawings 
of  Rome.  The  big  oil  paintings  of  Italy,  with  their 
classical  allusions,  he  might  have  painted  as  well  'out 
of  his  head,'  with  the  help  of  other  people's  sketches. 
They  are  not  Italy — that  is  to  say,  they  are  idealised 
Italy.  It  was  another  matter  with  his  Venetian  draw- 
ings and  paintings,  as  we  shall  see  later. 

Lastly,  the  second  letter   shows  that  no  more  in 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  99 

Rome  than  in  London  or  on  a  sketching-tour  did  he 
let  people  see  him  at  work.  He  painted  a  picture, 
three  feet  by  four,  apparently  the  View  of  Orvieto, 
now  in  the  National  Gallery,  and  showed  it  to 
appease  those  who  would  fain  have  obtained  access  to 
his  studio  to  see  what  he  was  doing. 

That  this  journey  set  him  dreaming  again,  and  that 
he  continued  to  dream,  of  legendary  and  romantic 
Italy,  the  following  list  of  oil  paintings  sufficiently 
shows.  In  1829  came  Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus 
and  the  Loretto  Necklace.  Though  the  subject  of  the 
former  picture  is  Greek,  the  landscape  is  an  idealised 
Italian  scene.  In  1832  he  exhibited  Childe  Harold's 
Pilgrimage,  Italy,  that  splendid  work  of  romantic  art, 
through  which  he  poured  out  what,  but  for  some 
mode  of  expression,  would  be  pent-up  feeling,  almost 
unbearable,  at  once  so  sweet  and  so  sad.  To  the  next 
year  belongs  Venice:  The  Dogana,  Campanile  of 
San  Marco,  followed  in  1834  by  Lake  Avernus : 
The  Golden  Bough;  in  1836  came  the  beautiful 
Mercury  and  Argus.  Still  the  emotion  was  not 
exhausted,  though  now  he  transferred  the  scene  to 
Greece,  where,  however,  he  had  not  been  ;  and  the 
landscape  is  the  same  as  that  of  his  ideal  Italy  in 
Apollo  and  Daphne:  The  Vale  of  Tempe  and  'The 
Parting  of  Hero  and  Leander,  exhibited  in  1837,  and 


ioo  TURNER 

in  the  Phryne  going  to  the  Public  Baths  as  Venus, 
of  the  following  year.  I  must  not  compile  a  cata- 
logue ;  but  after  these  came  Agrippina  landing  "with 
the  Ashes  of  Germanicus,  Proserpine:  the  Plains  of  Enna, 
and  'Bacchus  and  Ariadne. 

Other  oil  paintings  of  this  period  show  that  he 
lived  in  England,  in  '  Actuality ' — to  quote  Ruskin's 
phrase,  as  well  as  in  the  Dreamland  of  Italy.  Such 
are  the  fine  Line  Fishing  off  Hastings,  A  Ship  in 
Distress  off  Yarmouth,  St.  Michael 's  Mount,  the 
great  Fighting  Temeraire — a  splendid  apotheosis  of 
England's  Sea-power — and  Off  the  Nore :  Wind  and 
Water,  all  of  which,  and  others,  came  between  1835 
and  1840. 

All  through  this  time  he  was  also  hard  at  work  on 
his  water-colours,  continuing  series  of  drawings  for 
reproduction  already  begun,  and  beginning  and  carrying 
on  others,  in  addition  to  numerous  independent  draw- 
ings. 

In  1830  appeared  the  illustrated  edition  of  Rogers' 
'  Italy,'  and  in  1834  the  '  Poems.'  Thinking  of  the 
exquisitely  delicate  and  interpretative  engravings  from 
Turner's  works  that  these  volumes  contain,  one  regrets 
that  in  such  a  book  as  this  the  subject  of  Turner's 
engravers  could  only  be  so  inadequately  treated  that  it 
is  best  left  with  the  statement  already  made  that  we  are 


LIFE   AND    LIFE-WORK  101 

largely  indebted  to  him  for  the  training  of  a  great  school 
of  workers  in  this  art.  Turner's  own  drawings  are 
very  delicately  beautiful,  though  unequal  in  colour.  Of 
the  Datur  Hora  Quiefi,  discussed  in  our  first  chapter, 
Monkhouse  says  it  *  is  not  in  illustration  of  any  of  the 
poet's  verses,  but  is  a  more  beautiful  poem  than  ever 
Rogers  wrote.'  Ruskin  tells  us,  it  will  be  recollected, 
that  after,  when  a  boy,  he  had  spent  an  evening  at 
Rogers'  house,  he  was  dismayed  when  it  flashed  upon 
him  that  in  conversation  with  the  poet,  he  had  praised 
enthusiastically  the  illustrations  to  the  poems,  but  had 
said  never  a  word  about  the  poems  themselves ! 
Perhaps  we  may  add,  *  The  least  said,  the  soonest 
mended.' 

In  1831  Turner  was  in  Scotland  again,  to  fulfil  a 
commission  given  him  by  Mr.  Cadell,  the  publisher,  to 
make  twenty-four  drawings  for  an  illustrated  edition  of 
Scott's  Poetical  Works.  The  outline  of  his  tour  can 
be  traced  :  Rokeby,  Appleby,  Berwick,  Abbotsford — 
where  he  met  Sir  Walter — Edinburgh,  Stirling,  Loch 
Long,  Long  Ard,  StafFa,  the  Sound  of  Mull,  the  Isle 
of  Skye,  Fort  Augustus,  Inverness.  The  hat-raising 
incident  on  Tweedside,  when  Turner  saw  Norham, 
has  already  been  mentioned.  Another  story  of  this 
journey  is  that  when  Turner  was  in  the  Isle  of  Skye 
he  saved  himself  from  slipping  down  a  steep  slope  by 


102  TURNER 

clinging  to  a  tuft  of  grass.  I  have  previously  men- 
tioned the  figures  perched  on  a  rock,  in  what  looks 
like  a  dangerous  position,  in  the  Loch  Coruisk  draw- 
ing. Perhaps  Turner's  narrow  escape  partly  accounts 
for  them.  They  certainly,  as  I  have  said,  add  to  the 
wild,  dangerous-looking  character  of  the  scene.  It 
should  be  mentioned  that  before  doing  the  illustrations 
for  Scott's  poems,  Turner  had  made  drawings  for  his 
4  Provincial  Antiquities,'  which  was  published  in  1826. 
Within  the  period  1826  to  1835  he  was  engaged 
upon  the  drawings  which  were  engraved  for  the  book 
published  under  the  title  'The  Rivers  of  France,' 
containing  letterpress  by  Mr.  Leitch  Ritchie.  We 
are  told  that  though  they  both  visited  the  scenes  to  be 
illustrated,  they  travelled  little  together,  as  their  tastes 
in  everything  but  art  were  exceedingly  dissimilar. 
Knowing  what  we  do  of  Turner's  faculty  for  roughing 
it,  to  say  nothing  of  his  lack  of  sociability,  this  occa- 
sions no  surprise.  Mr.  Ritchie  did,  however,  see 
something  of  Turner's  work,  and  says,  '  I  was  curious 
in  observing  what  he  made  of  the  objects  he  selected 
for  his  sketches,  and  was  frequently  surprised  to  find 
what  a  forcible  idea  he  conveyed  of  a  place  with 
scarcely  a  correct  detail.  His  exaggerations,  when  it 
suited  his  purpose  to  exaggerate,  were  wonderful,  lift- 
ing up,  for  example,  by  two  or  three  stories,  the 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  103 

steeple,  or  rather  stunted  cone,  of  a  village  church.' 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Mr.  Ritchie  felt  the  idea 
given  of  the  places  they  did  visit  together  to  be 
forcible,  the  want  of  correct  detail  and  the  exaggera- 
tions notwithstanding. 

He  used  body-colour  on  grey  paper  for  the  draw- 
ings he  made ;  and  stayed  his  hand  when  he  had 
given  a  broad  impression  of  the  scene.  The  colour 
was  conventional,  by  no  means  true  to  nature,  much 
less  to  the  particular  locality  in  which  he  was  painting  ; 
but  effects  of  light  and  atmosphere  were  suggested 
with  all  his  wonderful  skill.  He  never  forgot  that  he 
was  working  for  the  engraver,  who,  however,  was  left 
to  deal  in  his  own  way  with  detail  at  which  the 
painter  had  only  deftly  hinted  ;  but  the  drawings  were 
always  designed  in  broad,  simple  masses,  making  easy 
their  reproduction  in  black  and  white.  They  are 
effective  in  this  way  even  when  they  are  seen  from 
across  a  moderately-sized  gallery,  and  when  it  is  barely 
possible  to  tell  what  they  represent.  They  are,  as 
Hamerton  says  of  them,  colour-music  in  orange  and 
purple,  red  and  green,  with  washes  of  cool  grey  to 
refresh  the  eye,  .and  touches  of  burning  scarlet  to  excite 
it.  But  those  who  know  France  will  agree  with  the 
same  writer,  who  knew  it  well,  that  the  colour  brings 
to  mind  not  France,  but  Turner.  In  many  cases  the 


104  TURNER 

principal  motive  of  the  drawing  seems  to  be  its  re- 
markably beautiful,  particular  effect  of  light. 

The  title  given  to  the  book  was  misleading,  for  only 
two  French  rivers,  the  Seine  and  the  Loire,  and  these 
always  in  or  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  towns  upon 
their  banks,  are  illustrated  in  it.  There  is  not  a  single 
drawing  in  which  the  river  is  seen  flowing  through 
entirely  open  country. 

Between  1833  and  1845  Turner  made  several 
Continental  journeys  ;  he  sketched  on  the  Meuse,  the 
Moselle,  and  the  Rhine,  he  went  again  to  Switzer- 
land, the  Italian  Lakes,  and  Venice,  to  Switzerland 
and  the  Rhine  once  more  ;  and  his  last  journey  abroad 
was  to  the  north  of  France  in  1845. 

From  the  work  that  was  the  result  of  these  jour- 
neys I  single  out  the  Venetian  sketches  and  pictures, 
which  are  among  the  most  distinctively  '  Turnerian ' 
things — the  very  climax  of  what  was  most  individual 
in  his  art.  The  unfinished  Venetian  sketches  are 
brilliant  in  light  and  colour,  and  in  their  effect  of 
atmosphere,  perhaps  the  most  impressionistic — using 
the  word  in  a  general,  not  a  limited,  technical  sense — of 
all  his  works.  How  one  lingers  before  the  brilliant 
sunlight  in  Venice,  the  Giudecca,  looking  out  to  Fusina  ; 
before  the  lovely  morning  light  in  the  Suburb  towards 
Murano  ;  before  the  Venice  from  Fusina,  with  the  rose, 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  105 

gold  and  orange  in  the  sky  made  intensely  luminous 
by  the  deep  purple  cloudlet  dashed  into  the  still  wet 
wash  of  colour  ;  before  a  drawing  named  simply 
Venice,  Suburb,  with  the  faintly  gleaming  light  of  the 
rising  moon,  the  fading  sunlight,  and  the  darkness 
beginning  to  steal  over  the  waters !  Such  impressions 
as  these  are  what  we  bring  away  from  scores  of 
Turner's  latest  sketches,  not  only  of  Venice,  but  of 
the  Rhine,  the  Italian  Lakes,  Switzerland,  and  else- 
where. 

The  fine  Venetian  oil  paintings  belong  to  the  same 
time  ;  the  sketches,  indeed,  supplied  the  material  for 
them,  as  in  the  Approach  to  Venice,  looking  towards 
Fuiina.  The  joyously  radiant  '  Sun  of  Venice'  going  to 
Sen,  Venice,  Evening — Going  to  the  Ball,  and  Venice, 
Morning — Coming  from  the  Ball,  are  odes  to  the  sun. 
In  others  of  the  Venetian  oil  paintings  there  is  more 
definite  portraiture  of  the  city  ;  but  they  are  all,  if  not 
all  in  the  same  degree,  light  and  colour  poems. 

In  Turner's  last  years  his  strength  became  stronger, 
and  his  weakness  more  clearly  showed  itself.  We  are 
puzzled  when  first  we  have  to  face  the  fact  that  while 
he  was  doing  the  great  things  just  mentioned,  and 
such  other  great  things  as  Rain,  Steam  and  Speed  and 
the  Snowstorm — which  is  great  notwithstanding  the 
'  soapsuds  and  whitewash  '  of  contemporary  criticism — 


106  TURNER 

he  could  produce  such  lamentable  things  as  War:  the 
Exile  and  the  Rock  Limpet,  and  before  this,  in  1831, 
Watteau  Painting  and  Lord  Percy  under  Attainder. 
One  is  almost  inclined  to  accuse  the  authorities  of 
malice  in  exhibiting  these  pictures.  Soon,  however, 
we  say  to  ourselves  that  genius  is  exceptional  develop- 
ment in  a  particular  direction  ;  the  indisputably  great 
things  that  Turner  did  come  upon  us  like  a  flood  ;  and 
we  know  it  to  be  only  the  certainty  of  his  genius  that 
makes  possible  the  exhibition  of  these  figure  paintings, 
which  are  as  futile  as  his  attempts  at  poetry. 

In  1 842  he  painted  Peace :  the  Burial  of  Wilkic. 
Other  friends,  who  did  not  receive  such  memorial, 
but  were  none  the  less  missed,  went  one  by  one. 
His  father  had  died  years  before  in  1829,  and  his 
life  became  a  lonelier  one  than  ever.  The  glowing 
pictures  that  have  just  been  mentioned  were  the  sunset 
of  his  art,  flaming  up  at  the  close  of  his  own  day. 
The  time  was  coming  when  he  would  ask  to  be  taken 
to  the  window  to  look  for  the  last  time  at  the  sun 
going  down  over  the  well  and  long  loved  river. 

We  need  not  go  over  again  at  any  length  the  con- 
troversy with  regard  to  the  closing  scenes  of  his  life. 
Ruskin  says  that  Turner  was  abandoned  by  his  friends. 
Hamerton  replies  that  it  was  Turner  who  abandoned 
them.  He  had  gone  to  live  in  a  house  by  the  river- 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  107 

side  at  Chelsea.  His  fellow-Academicians  tried  to 
find  out  where  he  was  hiding  himself — he  was  asked 
once  where  the  cabman  should  be  told  to  drive  him  ; 
but  he  was  too  sharp  to  do  more  than  give  a  pre- 
liminary direction,  accompanied  by  a  knowing  wink. 
Redgrave  thinks  that  it  was  to  enjoy  solitude  and  his 
lonely  studies  that  he  was  accustomed  to  lodge  in  this 
house  under  an  assumed  name ;  and  when  we  think 
of  the  exclusiveness  and  secretiveness  that  marked  his 
life  all  through,  we  can  readily  believe  that  he  was 
happiest  so. 

We  have  seen  him  to  be  always  a  solitary,  without 
the  qualifications  of  a  society  man  ;  and  it  may  be  that 
if  he  had  had  them  he  would  not  have  cared  to  put 
them  to  much  use.  He  was  a  prophet,  if  not  a 
Jeremiah  :  a  prophet  of  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of 
nature,  and  he  also  kept  watch,  not  always  over- 
cheerfully  it  must  be  said,  on  man's  mortality. 
Prophets  and  seers  are  not  usually  clubbable  men ;  and 
to  pity  Turner  would  be  to  wish,  in  effect,  that  he  had 
been  more  commonplace.  As  Mrs.  Browning  says,  not 
without  cost  and  pain  are  poets  made  out  of  men. 
We  need  not  therefore  construe  too  sadly  the  story  of 
Turner's  death  as  told  by  his  biographer  Thornbury. 
'  One  day,  as  she — his  old  housekeeper  Mrs.  Danby 
— was  brushing  an  old  coat  of  Turner's,  she  found 


io8  TURNER 

and  pounced  on  a  letter  directed  to  him,  and  written 
by  a  friend  who  lived  at  Chelsea.  Mrs.  Danby,  it 
appears,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Turner  himself 
was  probably  at  Chelsea,  and  went  there  to  seek  for 
him,  in  company  with  another  infirm  old  woman. 
From  inquiries  in  a  place  by  the  riverside,  where 
gingerbread  was  sold,  they  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  Turner  was  living  in  a  certain  small  house  close 
by,  and  informed  a  Mr.  Harper,  whom  she  and 
Turner  knew.  He  went  to  the  place  and  found  the 
painter  sinking.  This  was  on  the  i8th  of  December, 
1851,  and  on  the  following  day  Turner  died.'  It 
reads  like  evidence  given  at  an  inquest.  The  mere 
externals  of  his  death  hurt  us  for  a  moment.  Then 
we  remember  that  he  died  thinking  of  the  sun,  if  not 
with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  it. 

The  fate  of  Turner's  will  may  be  described  as  a 
leading  case  on  the  maxim  that  a  man  who  is  his  own 
lawyer  has  a  fool  for  his  client.  He  made  it  himself; 
and  he  also  made  codicils  to  it.  The  law  had  its 
revenge,  getting  a  vastly  larger  sum  in  costs  of  litigation 
than  the  testator  would  have  had  to  pay  to  get  his  will 
properly  drawn.  He  saved  guineas  at  the  cost,  after 
his  death,  of  thousands  of  guineas,  and  of  the  defeat 
of  a  considerable  part  of  his  purpose.  He  wanted  his 
finished  pictures  to  go  to  the  nation  to  form  a  Turner 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  109 

gallery.  He  wanted  to  found  an  institution  for  decayed 
artists,  and  to  institute  a  Turner  medal  at  the  Academy. 
He  left  money  for  a  monument  to  himself  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral.  All  these  things  have  been  construed 
somewhat  ungenerously,  as  being  tainted  with  selfish- 
ness ;  and  we  may  find  it  difficult  to  avoid  wincing  at 
the  provision  for  a  monument.  Could  he  doubt  that 
his  work  was  memorial  enough  ;  and  that  anything  else 
might  well  have  been  left  to  others  ?  Paid  for  by 
himself,  the  monument  has  little  value.  He  has  been 
blamed  because  he  revoked  bequests  of  money  previously 
made  to  uncles  and  cousins  ;  but  surely  this  was  a 
matter  for  him  to  decide ;  and  Mr.  Monkhouse  makes 
himself  another  man's  judge  in  saying,  '  We  think  the 
next  of  kin  should  have  had  a  great  deal  of  his 
money.'  As  a  matter  of  fact  they  got  it,  as  the 
outcome  of  litigation  that  ended  in  a  compromise. 
The  nation  got  all  the  pictures,  both  finished  and 
unfinished,  the  Royal  Academy  got  ^20,000,  the 
Turner  medal  was  provided  for  ;  but  his  desire  to 
found  an  institution  for  decayed  artists  was  unfulfilled. 
If  we  are  to  hold  inquest  upon  the  benevolence  or 
selfishness  of  his  motives,  surely  not  merely  generosity 
but  justice  demands  that  we  should  credit  him  with 
much  goodwill  to  his  fellows,  and,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  account,  make  allowance  for  an  upbringing 


no  TURNER 

not  calculated  to  draw  out  some  of  the  best  things 
that  are  latent  in  all  men,  and  for  a  life  almost  per- 
force solitary  and,  in  a  measure,  self-centred. 

We  have  seen  that  it  is  possible  to  put  a  kindlier 
interpretation  on  Turner's  rivalry  with  some  of  the 
earlier  landscape  painters  than  it  has  sometimes  been 
made  to  bear.  He  may  have  been  jealous  for  the 
reputation  of  contemporary  art  as  well  as  for  his  own  ; 
and  this  is  not  incompatible  with  a  consciousness  of  his 
own  high  rank  among  his  fellows,  and  eagerness  that  it 
should  be  recognised.  They  do  not  seem  to  have 
borne  him  any  ill  will.  Mr.  Monkhouse  says  that 
'many  of  his  fellow-artists  and  admirers  followed  him 
to  the  grave ;  nor  amongst  the  crowd  were  wanting 
a  few  old  friends  who  in  their  hearts  still  cherished 
him  as  "  dear  old  Turner." '  Redgrave,  who  says 
that  Turner  was  quite  aware  of  the  greatness  of 
his  own  powers,  and  jealous  of  their  recognition, 
records  also  the  help  he  gave  to  young  artists,  and 
instances  one  interesting  experience  of  his  own  when 
he  was  a  young  associate  of  the  Academy.  Howard 
told  him  frigidly  that  some  of  the  members  thought  the 
bosom  of  a  figure  in  one  of  his  pictures  to  be  indeli- 
cately naked  and  that  he  had  better  paint  the  dress 
higher.  Turner,  seeing  him  at  work  taking  a  hint 
that  was  equivalent  to  a  command,  asked  what  he  was 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  in 

doing,  and  on  being  told,  said,  '  Pooh,  pooh,  paint 
it  lower.'  This  puzzled  Redgrave,  and  then  Turner 
added,  '  You  want  white,'  and  turned  away.  '  What 
could  he  mean  ? '  the  story  proceeds,  '  I  pondered  over 
his  words,  and  after  a  while  the  truth  struck  me. 
The  coloured  dress  came  harshly  on  the  flesh  and 
no  linen  intervened.  I  painted  at  once,  over  a  portion 
of  the  bosom  of  the  dress,  a  peep  of  the  chemise. 
Howard  came  round  soon  after,  and  said,  with  a  little 
more  warmth,  "  Ah  !  you  have  covered  it  up — it  is  far 
better  now — it  will  do."  It  was  no  higher,  however  ; 
there  was  just  as  much  of  the  flesh  seen,  but  the  sense 
of  nakedness  and  display  was  gone.  Turner  also  came 
round  again,  and  gave  his  gratified  grunt  at  my  docility 
and  appreciativeness,  which  he  often  rewarded  after- 
wards by  like  hints.  Now  this  was  not  a  mere 
incidental  change,  but  it  was  a  truth,  always  available 
in  the  future,  the  value  of  linen  near  the  flesh — a  hint 
I  never  forgot — and  continually  found  useful.  Many 
such  have  I  heard  and  seen  him  give  to  his  brother 
landscape  painters — either  by  word  of  mouth  or  with  a 
dash  of  his  brush.'  Here  we  see  Turner,  not  only 
showing  incidentally  his  genius,  but  behaving  more 
kindly  to  one  of  his  younger  brethren  than  did 
Howard,  a  man  of  only  mediocre  talent.  The  narrator 
of  this  story  also  says  that  the  Academy  schools  '  were 


ii2  TURNER 

usually  better  attended  during  his — Turner's — visitor- 
ships  than  during  those  of  most  other  members,  from 
which  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  students  appreciated 
his  teaching.' 

The  little  tricks  he  played  on  his  equals  in  nominal 
rank  on  varnishing  days  need  hardly  be  quoted  against 
him,  such  as  making  his  own  pictures  more  brilliant 
after  the  hanging  had  been  completed.  These  are 
the  commonplaces  of  not  unkindly  rivalry.  One 
of  these  tricks  was  playeti -•  upon  Constable — and 
reference  to  it  suggests  the  remark  that  in  all  the 
biographies  of  Turner  we  read  little  or  nothing  of  any 
intercourse  between  these  two  contemporary  landscape 
painters,  so  different  in  their  aims  and  methods,  yet 
each  destined  to  take  a  high  place  in  the  history  of  the 
art,  Turner,  we  may  say,  the  higher  place,  but 
Constable  to  be  more  generally  influential  hitherto. 
The  story  is  that  a  sea-piece  by  Turner,  a  grey  picture 
with  no  positive  colour  in  it,  was  hung  next  to 
Constable's  brilliant  Opening  of  Waterloo  Bridge. 
Turner  came  along  and  put  on  his  grey  sea  a  dab 
of  red  lead  which  he  afterwards  glazed  and  shaped 
into  a  buoy.  This  took  the  colour  out  of  Constable's 
picture,  and  he  exclaimed,  when  he  saw  it,  '  Turner 
has  been  here  and  fired  a  gun.'  Thornbury  says  that 
there  was  not  much  love  lost  between  the  two  men  ; 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  113 

yet  Constable  could  speak  of  one  of  Turner's  pictures 
as  the  most  complete  work  of  genius  he  ever  saw. 

If  the  question  of  Turner's  relations  with  the  other 
sex  be  raised,  we  will  say  that  if  there  must  be  blame, 
there  may  well  be  more  pity.  I  have  not  told  hitherto 
a  story  of  his  young  days,  how  that  he  was  engaged 
to  be  married  to  the  sister  of  a  school  friend  at  Margate, 
that  her  stepmother  disapproved  of  the  match,  inter- 
cepted letters  written  to  the  girl  by  Turner,  and 
persuaded  her  that  he  had  forsaken  her,  that  she  gave 
her  hand  to  another,  and  when  Turner  appeared  again, 
just  before  the  time  fixed  for  her  marriage,  and  proved 
his  faithfulness,  she  refused  to  take  back  the  promise  to 
the  new  suitor,  thinking  herself  bound  to  him,  although 
Turner  still  had  her  affection.  In  this,  and  in  other 
things,  Turner  was  sinned  against,  which  may  palliate 
if  it  cannot  excuse  his  sinning.  He  is  said  to  have 
had  another  disappointment  later  in  life.  We  need 
not  think  too  hardly  of  him.  Let  us  put  to  his  credit 
that  he  was  fond  of  children,  and  that  they  were  fond 
of  him. 

Turner  the  man  has  been  only  less  discussed  than 
Turner  the  artist,  as  the  little  already  said  here  will 
suggest ;  and  his  very  personal  appearance  may  be  made 
a  matter  of  controversy.  Hamerton  says  that '  he  was 
a  person  of  unprepossessing  appearance,  short  and  thick- 


ii4  TURNER 

set,  with  coarse  features  and  the  general  appearance  of 
the  skipper  of  some  small  merchant  craft  living  on  shore 
in  the  interval  between  two  voyages.'  So  far  as  one 
can  judge  from  actual  portraits,  and  the  description  of 
those  who  knew  him,  this  particular  description  is 
very  near  to  caricature — to  which,  indeed,  the  pencil 
subjected  Turner  along  with  most  people  of  note. 
Redgrave  says  that  '  in  person  Turner  had  little  of  the 
outward  appearance  that  we  love  to  attribute  to  the 
possessors  of  genius.  In  the  last  twenty  years  of  his 
life,  during  which  he  knew  him  well,  his  short  figure 
had  become  corpulent — his  face,  perhaps  from  continual 
exposure  to  the  air,  was  unusually  red,  and  a  little 
inclined  to  blotches.  His  dark  eye  was  bright  and 
restless — his  nose,  aquiline.  He  generally  wore  what 
is  called  a  black  dress-coat,  which  would  have  been  the 
better  for  brushing — the  sleeves  were  mostly  too  long, 
coming  over  his  fat  and  not  over  clean  hands.  He 
wore  his  hat  while  painting  on  the  varnishing  days — or 
otherwise  a  large  wrapper  over  his  head,  while  on  the 
warmest  days  he  generally  had  another  wrapper  or 
comforter  round  his  throat — though  occasionally  he 
would  unloose  it  and  allow  the  two  ends  to  dangle  down 
in  front  and  pick  up  a  little  of  the  colour  from  his 
ample  palette.  This,  together  with  his  ruddy  face,  his 
rollicking'eye,  and  his  continuous,  although,  except  to 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  115 

himself,  unintelligible  jokes,  gave  him  the  appearance 
of  one  of  that  now  wholly  extinct  race — a  long-stage 
coachman.'  Except  that  we  cannot  see  the  colour  and 
the  dirt,  this  description  tallies  closely  with  Sir  John 
Gilbert's  sketch  of  Turner.  Redgrave's  comparison 
to  a  coachman  is  far  better  than  Hamerton's  comparison 
to  a  skipper,  which  the  sketch  does  not  in  the  least 
suggest,  though  it  is  said  the  Chelsea  people  took  him 
for  a  retired  admiral.  Turner  has  distinctly  what 
is  called  a  '  horsy  look  '  in  the  sketch.  The  expression 
of  sly,  good-humoured  cunning  would  not  be  unworthy 
of  a  horse-dealer. 

Putting  Redgrave's  description  and  Gilbert's  sketch 
together  again,  we  see  that  Hamerton  is  quite  wrong 
in  describing  Turner's  features  as  coarse.  He  had 
regular  features,  of  the  kind  that  is  indicative  of  strength 
of  character.  The  aquiline  nose  might  be  called 
Jewish,  and  certainly  he  had  much  of  the  persistence 
that  marks  that  long-suffering  race.  George  Dance's 
sketch  of  1800  shows  a  pensive-looking,  distinctly 
handsome  youth,  not  unstudious  in  the  matter  of  dress; 
while  in  an  early  portrait  by  an  unknown  artist,  we 
see  a  really  pretty  boy,  with  features  and  expression 
almost  girlish.  His  own  early  portrait  of  himself 
by  no  means  suggests  an  unprepossessing  appearance. 
In  all  the  portraits  the  well-formed  mouth  suggests 


u6  TURNER 

determination  ;  while  the  lips  are  ready  for  a  smile, 
and  the  eyes  for  a  twinkle.  What  Hamerton  calls 
coarseness  is  not  in  the  features,  but  in  the  stoutness, 
and  in  the  red  and  blotchy  skin,  for  which  Redgrave 
accounts  by  Turner's  spending  so  much  time  in  the 
open  air. 

What  has  been  said  and  quoted  about  his  appear- 
ance fitly  leads  up  to  what  follows,  which,  with  the 
untidiness  and  lack  of  cleanliness  in  dress  and  person, 
fully  justifies  our  description  of  him  as  a  tramp.  His 
house  was  in  keeping  with  his  person.  Here  is 
Redgrave's  description  of  it  :  '  The  scene  in  his 
rooms  on  the  occasion  of  his  funeral  would  have 
saddened  any  lover  of  art,  for  the  works  left  behind, 
almost  as  much  as  for  the  genius  that  had  passed  away. 
The  gallery  seemed  as  if  broom  or  dusting-brush  had 
never  troubled  it.  The  carpet  or  matting  (its  texture 
was  undistinguishable  from  dirt)  was  worn  and  musty  ; 
the  hangings,  which  had  once  been  a  gay  amber  colour, 
showed  a  dingy  yellow  hue  where  the  colour  was  not 
washed  out  by  the  drippings  from  the  ceiling  ;  for  the 
cove  and  the  glass  sky-lights  were  in  a  most  dilapidated 
state,  many  panes  broken  and  patched  with  old  news- 
papers. From  these  places  the  wet  had  run  down  the 
walls,  and  loosened  the  plaster,  so  that  it  had  actually 
fallen  behind  the  canvas  of  one  picture,  The  Bay  of 


LIFE   AND   LIFE-WORK  117 

'Baia;  which,  hanging  over  the  bottom  of  the  frame, 
bagged  outwards,  with  the  mass  of  accumulated  mortar 
and  rubbish  it  upheld.  Many  of  the  pictures — 
Crossing  the  Brook,  among  others — had  large  pieces 
chipped  or  scaled  off ;  while  others  were  so  fast  going 
to  decay,  that  the  gold  first,  and  then  the  ground,  had 
perished  from  the  very  frames,  and  the  bare  fir-wood 
beneath  was  exposed.'  Turner's  home  was  out-of- 
doors.  His  house  was  his  workshop  ;  and  though  he 
did  not  keep  his  workshop  tidy,  he  did  work  both 
good  and  great. 


Ill 
TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH 

SIR  WALTER  ARMSTRONG  ranks  Turner  higher  as  an 
illustrator,  a  meditator,  an  interpreter  of  nature  to  his 
fellows  than  as  a  creator.  He  points  out  what  we 
have  already  seen,  that  Turner  valued  his  work  rather 
as  a  means  to  an  end  than  as  an  end  in  itself.  He  was 
careless  about  the  use  of  materials,  careless  about  the 
preservation  of  his  pictures.  He  left  his  oil  paintings 
to  rot  in  the  damp,  literally  in  the  rain  that  came 
through  the  studio-roof;  he  sketched  on  both  sides  of 
his  paper,  crumpled  up  drawings  in  his  pockets, 
crammed  them  into  drawers.  How  different  is  all 
this  from  the  scrupulous  care  that  possessors  of  his 
drawings  now  take  of  them  !  A  gentleman  was  once 

introduced  to  the  present  writer  as  '  Mr. ,  who 

keeps  Turner  water-colours  in  his  wardrobe ' ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  drawings  were  kept  in  the  dark,  so  that 
they  might  not  fade,  and  were  only  brought  out  when 
their  owner  wished  to  look  at  them  or  to  show  them  to 
118 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   119 

others.  Had  Turner  been  above  all  things  a  creator, 
it  is  argued,  he  could  not  have  been  so  indifferent  to  the 
fate  of  much  of  his  work. 

This  line  of  argument  is  perhaps  not  convincing,  but 
let  us  gladly  admit  that  Turner  was  a  great  illustrator  : 
that  he  made  such  a  comprehensive  record,  expressed 
in  terms  of  art,  of  the  look  of  heaven,  earth  and  sea, 
as  far  exceeds  anything  of  the  same  kind  done  by  any 
other  artist.  With  this,  indeed,  we  have  seen  that  he 
is  credited  by  everyone. 

We  have  also  noted  the  diversity  of  interest  in  his 
pictures.  The  mingling  in  one  work  of  such  purely 
artistic  considerations  as  design,  tone,  colour,  of  record 
of  natural  phenomena,  often  remarkably  detailed,  and 
of  figures  interesting  on  their  own  account  as  well  as 
for  purely  pictorial  reasons,  is  more  common  with  him 
than  with  any  other  painter.  In  the  preceding  chap- 
ters I  have  had  much  to  say  about  his  art ;  in  the 
next  one  I  shall  discuss  separately  the  human  incidents 
in  his  pictures,  which,  if  we  bring  them  together  men- 
tally, we  find  to  amount  to  nothing  less  than  a  human 
epic.  In  the  present  chapter  I  wish  to  give  such  idea 
as  I  can  in  a  few  pages  of  the  immense  range  of 
Turner's  study  and  interpretation  of  the  visible  universe. 

The  title  'The  Pageant  of  Nature'  suggested 
itself  for  this  chapter ;  but  though  there  is  much 


izo  TURNER 

pageantry,  much  brilliant  display  in  nature,  and  though 
Turner  delighted  in  it,  and  left  many  a  marvellous 
record  of  it,  both  nature  and  Turner's  interpretation  of 
it  go  far  deeper  than  pageantry.  The  simplest  words, 
those  that  are  most  pregnant  with  meaning  to  the 
imagination,  those  that  the  Hebrew  writer  used  when 
he  told  the  story  of  Creation,  are  not  too  simple  and 
large  for  our  immediate  purpose. 

George  Meredith  used  the  word  Earth  in  such  deep, 
imaginative  way.  For  literary  parallels  to  Turner's 
paintings  we  might  go  to  him,  as  well,  at  least,  as  to 
Ruskin's  purple  passages  written  to  express  his  sense 
of  Turner's  power.  It  would  take  a  succession  of 
Turner  drawings  to  follow  the  Venetian  sunrise  that 
Beauchamp  and  Renee  watched  after  the  night  on  the 
lagoon ;  and  such  a  succession  of  drawings  could  be 
brought  together.  Turning  to  Meredith's  '  Reading 
of  Earth ' — which  includes  an  '  Appeasement  of 
Demeter  ' — we  find,  in  the  *  Hymn  to  Colour,'  a  verse 
that  is  the  equivalent  in  words  of  many  a  Turner 
drawing. 

Look  now  where  Colour,  the  soul's  bridegroom,  makes 

The  house  of  heaven  splendid   for  the  bride. 
To  him  as  leaps  a  fountain  she  awakes, 

In  knotting  arms,  yet  boundless  :  him  beside, 

She  holds  the  flower    to    heaven,  and  by  his  power 
Brings  heaven  to  the  flower. 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   121 

The  admiring  friends  of  Eugene  Boudin,  one  of  the 
forerunners  of  the  Impressionist  School,  praised  him  as 
the  Master  of  the  Skies.  The  title  was  not  undeserved; 
yet  how  much  more  fully  it  was  deserved  by  Turner  ! 
Boudin  mastered  little  more  than  the  almost  illusive  ex- 
pression of  vast,  luminous  spaciousness.  One  asks,  not 
what  of  all  the  sky  has  to  show  did  Turner  master,  as 
far  as  art  could  master  it,  but  what  did  he  leave  un- 
mastered  ?  to  show  that  the  question  so  put  would  not 
be  a  foolish  one,  I  may  quote  once  more  one  of  the 
sanest  of  writers  upon  art,  himself  also  a  painter. 
Redgrave  says  of  Turner,  '  Nature  revealed  to  him  a 
flood  of  atmospheric  light,  a  world  of  infinitely  tender 
gradations  of  tint  and  colour,  gradations  so  minute  as  to 
be  almost  inappreciable  by  other  men,  and  such  as  it 
seemed  hopeless  to  realise  by  the  practice  which  then 
prevailed ;  he  had,  therefore,  to  invent  his  own 
methods.  .  .  .  Water-colour  seemed  to  lend  itself 
most  readily  to  the  imitation  of  those  effects  in  nature 
he  so  much  loved  to  represent — nature  lost  in  a  blaze 
of  light,  rather  than  dimmed  with  a  twilight  gloom — 
and  thus  it  happens  that  his  works  in  this  medium 
mostly  embody  some  evanescent  effect,  be  it  flood  of 
sunshine  bursting  forth  after  storms,  or  careering  in 
gleams  over  the  plain,  the  mountain,  or  the  sea  ;  or 
some  wrack  of  clouds,  some  passing  shower  or  rainbow 


122  TURNER 

of  promise  refreshing  the  gladdened  and  glistening 
earth.'  It  is  going  far  to  say  that  he  saw  gradations  so 
minute  as  to  be  almost  unappreciable  by  other  men  ; 
and  yet  it  is  but  sober  truth. 

What  a  wide  range  of  atmospheric  effect  there  is 
even  in  his  oil  paintings  alone  !  The  heavy  threaten- 
ing gloom  of  the  Calais  Pier,  the  driving  cloud  and 
misty  rain  of  the  Shipwreck,  the  vast  aerial  expanse  of 
changeful  light  and  shade  of  the  London  from  Greenwich, 
the  palpitating  gleams  of  light  through  the  rain-veil  in 
Rain,  Steam  and  Speed,  the  tender  morning  light  of  the 
Frosty  {Morning,  the  golden  morning  haze  of  the 
Abingdon,  the  glorious  sunrise  of  Ulysses  deriding 
Polyphemus,  the  joyous,  exhilarating  splendour  of  the 
morning  in  The  Sun  of  Venice  going  to  Sea,  the  symbolic 
magnificence  of  the  sunset  sky,  with  its  glowing  sun 
and  softly  shining  crescent  moon  in  The  Fighting 
Te'meraire,  the  fading  sunlight  and  steady  shining  of 
the  full  moon  in  the  Agripplna  landing  with  the  Ashes 
of  Germanicus.  I  take  but  a  few  examples,  the  list 
might  be  made  a  long  one  ;  and  Ruskin's  eloquence, 
describing  the  infinity  of  detail  within  the  unity  of 
effect  in  any  of  these  and  other  skies,  could  not  exhaust 
the  wonder  of  them. 

One  faces  the  task  of  saying  something  about  the 
skies  and  atmospheric  effects  of  the  water-colour 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   123 

drawings  with  diffidence  that  falls  little  short  of 
despair.  Not  a  few  who  have  written  about  Turner, 
and  have  maintained  a  critical  attitude,  alleging,  as 
does  Hamerton,  that  Ruskin  was  less  a  critic  than  an 
artist  in  words,  have  given  warnings  against  Turner 
worship.  Yet  no  artist  but  Turner  could  have  called 
forth  Ruskin's  eloquence,  uncritical  though  it  may  be 
held  to  be ;  and  no  warnings  have  ever  been  given  against 
the  worship  of  any  of  his  contemporaries,  or  any  of 
his  successors,  from  which  it  may  be  implied  that  there 
was  that  in  Turner,  but  not  in  the  others,  that  might 
well  induce  something  at  least  akin  to  worship.  And 
this  feeling  comes  over  us  chiefly  when  we  look  at,  or 
recall,  or  turn  over  pages  of  reproductions  of,  his  water- 
colour  drawings.  '  The  more  reproductions  we  can 
have  of  the  master's  drawings,'  Sir  Charles  Holroyd 
has  said  recently,  'the  more  will  it  be  possible  to 
study  properly  his  great  message,  and  the  more  will  his 
genius  be  recognized.  I  would  like  to  see  every  one 
of  his  nineteen  thousand  water-colour  sketches  and 
lead  pencil  drawings  reproduced,  so  that  we  could  all 
hold  them  in  our  hands  and  carry  them  about  with  us ; 
for  in  them  there  is  an  unfailing  beauty  of  composition, 
and  a  glorious  truth  of  effect  and  detail,  by  which 
Turner  managed  to  make  complete  pictures  out  of 
even  the  fewest  touches.'  Among  these  thousands  of 


i24  TURNER 

drawings  and  sketches  how  many  are  there  in  which 
the  scene  depicted  is  shown  under  some  remarkable 
atmospheric  effect ;  and  no  effect  was  too  magnificent, 
or  too  subtly  beautiful,  for  Turner  to  shrink  from  the 
attempt  to  translate  it  into  the  terms  of  his  art.  Hence, 
both  his  faculty  of  sight  and  his  power  to  interpret 
what  he  saw  were  developed  until,  as  we  have  quoted 
Redgrave's  saying  of  him,  nature  revealed  to  him  a 
world  of  gradations  of  tint  and  colour  so  minute  as  to 
be  almost  inappreciable  by  other  men,  and  his  water- 
colour  paintings  epitomised  the  whole  mystery  of 
landscape  art. 

Before  anything  is  said  of  particular  drawings,  there 
are  some  general  considerations  to  which  reference 
should  be  made.  There  is  in  nature  infinite  gradation 
of  light  and  colour,  and  there  is  also  infinite  variety  of 
form.  If  clouds  actually  the  same  in  form  are  spread 
over  the  sky,  their  varying  position  in  relation  to  our 
point  of  view  gives  to  each  an  apparent  shape  different 
from  that  of  any  of  its  fellows.  Parallel  lines  of 
cloud,  and  parallel  lines  of  movement,  appear  to 
converge ;  and,  though  space  be  a  vast  abyss,  the 
belt  of  atmosphere  that  surrounds  the  earth  and  the 
vapours  within  it  follow  the  curve  of  the  earth. 
What  wonderful  rhythm  of  line  and  curve  this  means ! 
How  subtle  the  variations  inevitably  are !  There  is 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   125 

no  confusion  amid  it  all.  We  are  conscious  of  this  as 
we  watch  the  clouds.  Their  movement  is  visible 
music.  We  see  that  it  is  ordered,  and  yet  the 
apparent  variety  of  movement  is  so  great  that  it  would 
be  truer  to  say  that  we  feel  rather  than  see  its  order- 
liness. Such  variety  in  unity,  of  light,  colour,  form 
and  movement,  means,  for  us,  beauty,  and  more  than 
beauty — or,  if  anyone  will  have  it  so,  the  fullest 
meaning  for  which  the  word  beauty  can  be  used  : 
awe  -  inspiring  power  and  majesty,  magnificence, 
splendour,  dazzling  brilliance,  radiance,  serenity.  I 
need  not  seek  to  exhaust  the  categories.  Those  of  us 
who  have  watched  the  skies  have  more  or  less  vague, 
visual  recollections  of  the  music  they  have  played  for 
us.  In  Turner's  works  we  have  the  recollections, 
aided  by  notes  taken  at  the  moment,  of  a  man  with  a 
pre-eminent  gift  of  observation,  studiously  trained  and 
developed  through  a  lifetime ;  and  while  we  look  at 
them  we  are  thrilled  as  our  vague  remembrances,  one 
after  another,  are  made  definite. 

The  Liber  Studiorum  alone,  apart  from  colour,  would 
furnish  us  with  all  the  examples  we  need  to  give. 
Here  are  heavy  rain-clouds  which  soon  will  cover 
the  sky  from  horizon  to  horizon,  and  wholly  shut 
out  the  higher  heavens  ;  here  a  belt  of  them,  obscur- 
ing the  summit  of  Criffel,  and  seeming  to  wage  war 


126  TURNER 

against  the  setting  sun  behind  him,  drives  across  the 
Solway  ;  here  as  the  sun  goes  down  his  beams  shoot 
out  into  a  quiet  sky  behind  the  massive  keep  of 
Norham  Castle,  and  light  the  flanks  of  a  bank  of 
cumulus  cloud  and  the  undersides  of  the  long  lines 
of  cirrus  in  the  higher  regions  of  the  air  ;  here,'  again, 
the  sun  goes  down,  his  light  only  softly  veiled,  not 
hidden,  by  filmy  vapour,  so  that  his  orb  shows 
perfectly,  while  the  trees  that  rise  in  the  foreground, 
by  their  blackness  against  the  light,  intensify  its  glow- 
ing radiance ;  the  tones  fade  away  imperceptibly  to 
and  beyond  '  the  bridge  in  the  middle  distance  '- 
we  may  as  well  identify  the  plate — until  land  and 
sky  melt  into  one  another  ;  here,  again,  the  brilliant 
sunshine  fills  the  spray-laden  air  above  the  Falls  of 
Clyde,  and  plays  in  and  out  of  the  overhanging  trees  ; 
night  is  passing  into  day,  the  dawn-light  will  soon 
reach  and  dim  the  brightness  of  the  waning  moon, 
while  Rizpah  watches  over  the  bones  of  her  children. 
The  limited  scale  between  the  utmost  light  and  the 
utmost  dark  at  the  disposal  of  art,  as  compared  with 
nature's  scale,  is  often  cited  as  being  enormously  to 
the  disadvantage  of  art.  One  of  the  glories  of  art, 
however,  consists  in  this  limitation  ;  for,  great  though 
it  be,  she  can  still  awaken  within  us  emotions  as 
strong  as  those  we  have  felt  when  face  to  face  with 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH  127 

nature ;  nay,  she  can  even,  by  selection  and  emphasis, 
intensify  those  emotions.  The  Liber  Studiorum  plates, 
even  though  they  lack  colour,  almost  produce  upon  us 
an  impression  of  reality. 

If  we  pass  from  Turner's  monochromes  to  his 
drawings  in  colour,  will  the  impression  of  reality  be 
greater  ?  This  by  no  means  follows  of  necessity. 
The  crudest  colour  is  nearer  to  the  fact  of  nature 
than  is  mere  black-and-white,  but  it  is  not  so  near 
to  the  impression  nature  makes  upon  us.  The  crudity 
lessens  or  even  destroys  all  impression.  Turner's  colour 
is  never  crude  ;  but  it  is  always  so  conventional,  so 
obviously  arranged,  harmonised,  as  we  do  not  find 
it  in  nature,  that  while  there  is  an  increase  of  beauty 
as  compared  with  the  monochrome,  the  feeling  of 
actuality  is  not  heightened,  but  lessened.  Frequently 
we  have  to  consider  one  drawing  from  the  two  stand- 
points of  decoration  and  actuality.  This  was  Whist- 
ler's difficulty,  referred  to  in  the  first  chapter.  I 
mention  it  here  in  order  to  say  that  actuality  and 
decoration  seem  to  me  to  be  more  generally  combined 
in  his  skies,  both  in  form  and  colour,  than  in  the  rest 
of  the  landscape.  It  is  as  if  he  threw  the  whole 
of  his  power  into  the  sky,  and  fell  back  upon  certain 
conventions  —  albeit  beautiful  conventions  —  for  the 
rest.  We  may  take  the  National  Gallery  drawing 


i28  TURNER 

of  Arundel  Castle  for  example.  It  is  a  showery 
day.  Masses  of  cumulus  cloud  are  travelling  over 
the  distant  sea.  There  is  some  convention  in  the 
colour  of  the  clouds,  but  they  give  a  strong  impression 
of  light,  atmosphere,  and  movement,  whereas  the 
castle,  the  trees  in  the  middle  distance,  the  grass  on 
the  hillsides,  and  the  deer  in  the  foreground,  though 
beautiful  in  colour,  are  yet  so  conventional  as  to  give 
far  less  impression  of  actuality  than  the  sky. 

One  cannot  if  one  would  make  of  these  chapters 
water-tight  compartments,  so  that  what  is  the  main 
subject  of  one  shall  not  be  partly  considered  in  the 
others  ;  and  in  this  and  the  preceding  chapter  I  have 
said  so  much  about  Turner's  '  reading '  of  the  sky,  that 
little  more  need  be  added.  And  what  can  be  said — 
where  saying  must  mean  so  little  except  as  an  incentive 
to  seeing — but  that  now  with  utmost  delicacy  and  now 
with  utmost  intensity  of  colour,  with  the  most  subtle 
rendering  of  form,  when  form  tells  in  the  scene,  with 
suggestion  of  the  countlessness  of  the  cloudlets  that 
sometimes  cover  the  sky,  with  almost  illusive  opening 
out  of  the  depths  of  space,  with  tenderest  veiling  of 
haze,  with  power  to  recall,  what  to  give  is  impossible, 
a  sense  of  the  full  splendour  of  the  sun  from  which 
man  must  turn  away  his  eyes,  with  what  is  almost 
a  realisation  of  'the  hiding  of  his  power,'  and  of  the 


TURNER'S   READING  OF  EARTH    129 

short-lived  triumph  of  the  storm-clouds,  with  skill 
beyond  words  to  suggest  the  slow  awakening  of 
day  and  the  silent  coming  on  of  night,  Turner 
showed  himself  to  be  the  master  of  the  skies  ? 

One  often  asks  oneself  also  if  anyone  but  Turner 
has  ever  painted  the  mountains.  Let  the  question 
stand,  not  to  be  answered  in  any  absolute  way  in  his 
favour,  but  as  a  witness  to  the  strength  of  the  im- 
pression his  mountain  work  makes  upon  us.  The 
majesty  of  the  mountains,  their  effect  of  giant  power 
in  repose,  their  solemn  grandeur  when  darkened  by 
the  clouds,  their  glorious  beauty  when  the  sun  illumines 
them,  how  at  one  time  they  seem  to  threaten  us  with 
a  crushing  weight  that  will  annihilate  our  very  being, 
and  at  another  they  draw  our  spirits  up  towards  God 
and  heaven — surely  all  this  has  never  been  expressed 
as  fully  by  anyone  as  by  Turner.  And,  beyond  this, 
he  has  seen  and  made  record  of  what,  even  if  the 
feeling  be,  and  be  known  to  be  but  a  pathetic  fallacy, 
we  still  feel  to  be  the  age-long  brave  but  hopeless 
struggle  of  the  mountains  against  an  inevitable  fate. 

The  sight  of  distant  mountains  had  a  strong  fascina- 
tion for  Turner,  as  it  must  have  for  all  except  those 
who  are  wholly  devoid  of  imagination.  The  reason 
is  not  far  to  seek.  We  know  that  were  we  close  to 
those  filmy  undulations  that  break  the  level  of  the 
K 


130  TURNER 

horizon  line,  and  look  as  if  we  could  step  over  them  as 
over  children's  sand-castles  on  the  shore,  they  would 
rise  high  above  us  in  rocky  strength  that  incalculable 
ages  have  not  sufficed  to  wear  away.  We  know  they 
are  this,  though  they  look  so  small.  How  vast  there- 
fore is  the  earth,  of  whose  great  round  the  fraction  that 
divides  us  from  those  far-off  mountains  is  little  more 
than  minute,  while  they  themselves  are  not  high 
enough  materially  to  roughen  its  surface  !  Seen  close 
to,  the  mountains  carry  our  thoughts  upward.  Seen 
far  away,  they  carry  our  thoughts  to  what  is  be- 
yond them.  Often  one  has  looked  long  and  long 
from  Dover  at  the  French  cliffs  gleaming  across  the 
Channel,  and  thought  that,  once  landed  there,  no  sea 
would  divide  us  from  three  of  the  great  continents  of 
the  world ! 

None  of  our  English  coasts  is  less  romantic  in 
itself  than  that  of  Lancashire.  Yet  what  poetry  it  has 
in  the  sight  it  affords  of  distant  hills  and  mountains  ! 
Inland  are  to  be  seen  the  massive  forms,  like  couchant 
lions,  of  Rivington  and  Pendle  ;  while  the  summit  of 
Ingleborough — Turner's  Ingleborough  we  might  almost 
call  it — can  be  seen  over  the  shoulder  of  one  of  the 
nearer  hills.  Away  to  the  south-west  rise  the  Welsh 
mountains,  beginning  with  those  that  flank  the  Vale  of 
Clvvyd,  and  ending  with  the  stately  forms  of  those 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   131 

that  lie  to  the  north  of  Snowdon  and  the  Carnedds, 
and  nearly  rival  them  in  height.  In  clear  weather,  we 
may  look  for  the  summits  of  the  hills  in  that  Celtic  out- 
post, the  Isle  of  Man  ;  away  to  the  north-west,  oftener 
than  not,  we  can  see  Wordsworth's  Black  Combe, 
like  an  ever-watchful  sentinel  of  the  land,  and  more 
northward  still,  the  Old  Man  of  Coniston,  Helvellyn, 
and  the  ranges  that  stretch  eastward  till  we  come  to 
Ingleborough  again. 

Has  not  all  this  its  place  in  the  Reading  of  Earth  ? 
Turner  found  it  so  ;  and  though  distant  hills  may  have 
always  filled  us  with  a  deep,  inexpressible  longing,  the 
feeling  has  been  intensified  in  some  of  us  by  Turner's 
subtle  rendering  of  the  far-away  sight  of  not  a  few  of 
those  we  have  mentioned.  Engravings  of  the  two 
Lancaster  Sands  drawings  are  before  me.  In  one  of 
them  a  heavy  shower  has  blotted  out  the  distance ;  in 
the  other  the  clouds  have  risen  high  above  the  moun- 
tains as  the  sun  goes  down,  and  range  after  range  dis- 
closes itself.  The  literalist  in  one  may  complain  that 
behind  the  Coniston  range,  which  is  drawn  with  near 
approach  to  accuracy,  Turner's  imagination  has  seen 
another  and  vastly  higher  range.  Yet,  after  all,  we  do 
just  see  the  Scawfell  mountains  behind  Coniston,  and 
imagine  a  grandeur  we  know  to  be  there.  It  is 
rather  hard  on  Helvellyn  that  this  magnified  Scawfell 


132  TURNER 

should  reduce  him  to  insignificance,  and  those  lofty 
peaks  to  the  eastward,  beyond  the  limestones  of 
Arnside  and  Carnforth,  do  make  the  literalist  to 
shake  his  head !  But  let  the  literalist  be  unhesi- 
tatingly suppressed,  for  this  is  the  very  spirit  of  the 
scene ;  and  the  letter,  when  art  would  interpret  nature, 
does  most  surely  kill,  as  sketches  of  my  own,  made 
on  the  shore  of  Morecambe  Bay,  are  proof  positive  to 
me  at  least !  Yet  Ruskin  can  praise  the  Hey  sham 
drawing  as  not  '  losing  for  a  moment  the  sincere  sim- 
plicity of  the  wild  country  and  homely  people,  in  any 
morbid  or  strained  idealisation ' ;  and  I  am  fain  to 
confess  that  the  more  literal  rendering  of  the  hills  in 
this  drawing — though  even  here  there  has  been  no 
merely  slavish  adherence  to  the  letter — gets  right 
home  to  me. 

Such  drawings  as  these  Ruskin  classed  as  '  Actu- 
ality, England  at  Rest.'  In  another  group,  which  he 
called  'Dreamland,  Italy,'  comes  the  drawing  Turin, 
from  the  Church  of  the  Superga.  Again  we  have  a 
view  of  distant  mountains  :  this  time  of  the  Alps.  It 
is  they,  far  away  beyond  Turin,  not  the  city  itself, 
that  arrest  and  hold  our  gaze.  Italy  is  dreamland  to 
the  Englishman.  M.  de  la  Sizeranne,  in  the  course 
of  an  essay  on  Turner's  oil  paintings,  says  that  'the 
English  are  a  race  for  whom  the  Continent  is  a  sort  of 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH  133 

Promised  Land,  the  home  of  the  Ideal,  a  Canaan 
with  its  gigantic  grapes,  somewhat  akin  to  what  in  art 
and  poetry  China  was  for  a  long  time  to  Japan,  that 
other  satellite-isle  gravitating  around  that  other  conti- 
nent. The  English  do  not  tell  you  this — in  perfect 
good  faith  they  believe  the  contrary.  But  their  art, 
their  works,  betray  their  secret  thoughts  by  showing 
where  their  imagination  lies — Italy,  the  shores  of 
Provence,  Spain,  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  and 
the  Tyrol,  the  lands  of  the  olive,  the  orange  and  the 
grape.  All  that  England  does  not  possess  haunts  the 
Englishman's  spirit.'  There  is  truth  here,  if  also  over- 
statement. Turner,  indeed,  went  to  France,  to  Swit- 
zerland and  to  Italy,  and  painted  there  ;  but  he  painted  * 
most  at  home.  Gainsborough,  Constable,  Cox, 
Crome,  and  many  another  of  our  landscape  painters, 
never  cared  to  leave  home ;  and  was  it  not  by  Con- 
stable's loving  portraiture  of  England  that  the  French 
landscape  painters  were  helped  sympathetically  to 
interpret  their  own  land  ?  Ought  we  to  be  so  full  of 
insular  self-satisfaction  that  the  different  beauty,  the 
romance,  the  venerable  civilisations  of  other  lands, 
should  make  no  appeal  to  our  imagination  ?  Surely  it 
was  not  as  M.  de  la  Sizeranne  says,  a  sure  mark  of 
the  Englishman  that  Turner  dreamed  of  Carthage  and 
of  imperial  Rome. 


134  TURNER 

Any  man,  of  any  nation,  would  be  dull  indeed,  if  he 
looked  at  Turner's  drawing  of  the  Alps  as  seen  from 
the  Superga  and  remained  unmoved — how  much  more 
so  if  he  looked  upon  the  scene  itself.  What  history 
has  been  made  on  that  plain,  stretching  away  to  the 
foot  of  the  mountains !  It  may  be  that  Hannibal 
entered  Italy  by  the  valley  we  see  ;  perhaps  his  ad- 
vance was  watched  from  the  hill  where  we  are  standing. 
We  may  be  sure  that  Turner  thought  of  this.  A 
thunderstorm  in  Wharfedale  made  him  think  of  the 
great  Carthaginian  crossing  the  Alps.  It  is  with  the 
mountains  themselves,  however,  not  with  the  history 
that  has  been  made  upon  and  about  them,  that  we  are 
concerned  just  now.  Let  us  see  how  Turner  has 
interpreted  them  so  wonderfully  that  one  hardly  tires 
of  looking  at  the  drawing.  Two  columns  of  the 
church  show  little  more  than  half  their  length  before 
they  reach  the  top  of  the  picture.  At  once  we  get  an 
impression  of  great  height.  The  sunlight  falls  steeply 
down  on  them,  but  part  of  one  of  them  is  in  shadow. 
Hence  comes  a  feeling  of  the  vast  sunlit  space  above 
and  around  us,  part  of  which,  showing  intervals  of  blue 
sky  between  white  fleecy  clouds,  illumined  with 
quivering  light,  is  seen  between  the  columns.  The 
diamond  pattern  on  the  pavement,  the  figures,  the 
balustrades  that  flank  the  unseen  steps,  the  loop  in  the 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH  135 

river  as  it  passes  through  the  city,  the  long  line  of  road, 
all  lead  the  eye  towards  the  distant  mountains.  The 
columns,  hewn  from  them,  or  from  such  as  they,  seem 
like  an  echo  of  their  strength.  Fold  upon  fold  they 
rise,  after  starting — as  the  Alps  do  on  the  southern 
side — abruptly  from  the  plain.  Sunlight  and  shade, 
softly  veiled  by  the  distance,  play  amongst  them  with  a 
subtlety  that  goes  far  to  equal  anything  that  our  visual 
memory  can  recall  in  nature  itself — should  we,  had  we 
been  with  Turner,  have  seen  a  tithe  of  the  beauty  of 
form  and  light  and  colour  that  is  in  the  drawing,  and 
more  than  which  he  saw  ?  On  the  highest  part  of  the 
range,  stretching  from  end  to  end  of  the  picture,  lies 
the  snow,  exquisitely  gradated  with  the  most  delicate 
touches  of  bluish  grey.  It  is  as  if  a  garment  were  being 
bleached  to  utmost  purity  for  a  goddess  to  wear.  The 
tenderness  of  the  light  and  colour  in  the  landscape  is 
enhanced  by  the  vigorous  colour  of  the  figures — the 
Turnerian  figures,  we  must  say — within  the  porch. 
We  need  not  criticise  the  drawing  of  them  ;  they  are 
there,  not  so  much  to  be  looked  at,  as  that  we  may 
pass  from  them  to  the  splendour  and  solemnity  of  the 
mountains  that  have  seen  the  coming  and  the  going  of 
countless  generations  of  men,  and  teach  us  to  regard 
the  brief  lives  and  dubious  deeds  of  individual  men  in 
the  light  of  the  long,  slow  progress  of  humanity. 


136  TURNER 

Travelling  in  the  old,  slow  way,  Turner  had  many 
chances  of  sketching  in  the  outskirts  of  the  Alps, 
where  veteran  travellers  often  rebuke  those  of  this 
hurrying  age  for  not  lingering.  He  made  sketches  in 
pencil  and  chalk,  and  in  water-colour,  at  Macon, 
Grenoble,  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  Bonneville,  and 
elsewhere.  In  the  Liber  plate,  The  Alps  from  Grenoble, 
we  have  another  distant  view  of  the  mountains  over  a 
level  plain,  but  this  time  with  a  hill-side  vineyard,  not 
a  church  porch,  for  foreground,  and  with  a  totally 
different  effect  of  light.  The  sun  is  now  before  us, 
not  behind  us,  and  instead  of  lighting  up  the  mountains 
throws  them  into  varying  depths  of  solemn  shade. 
The  sky,  also,  is  more  clouded,  and  two  filmy  beams 
of  light  shining  down  upon  the  valley  deepen  the 
sombreness  and  emphasise  the  strength  of  the  mountains 
behind  them.  A  few  inches  of  stained  paper  suffice 
to  give  an  impression  of  nature's  vastness. 

The  drawings  that  Turner  made  among  the  Swiss 
lakes  are  legion,  and  are  remarkable  for  their  beauty 
of  light  and  colour.  The  Central  Alps  are  not 
far  away,  are  indeed  often  within  sight,  but  their 
terror  and  grandeur  are  either  hidden  or  softened  into 
beauty  by  distance.  The  lower,  tree-clad  mountains 
that  enclose  the  lakes  and  are  reflected  in  their  waters 
are  beautiful  in  themselves,  and  lend  their  beauty  to 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   137 

the  lakes,  which  are,  indeed,  usually  only  a  feature  of 
the  softer  mountain  scenery.  It  seems  almost  too 
simple  a  thing  to  say  that  a  lake,  unless  it  had  beautiful 
surroundings,  would  be  merely  a  natural  reservoir,  and 
when  we  speak  of  the  comparative  beauty  of  lakes  it 
is  really  their  surroundings  that  are  in  question.  How 
different  it  is  with  the  sea  !  It  has  beauty  and 
grandeur  wholly  independent  of  surroundings,  due 
only  to  itself  and  the  skies  above  it.  Vast  expanse, 
knowing  no  limit  to  the  sight  but  the  horizon,  and 
boundless  to  the  imagination,  and  ceaseless  movement, 
culminating  in  the  great  storm-waves  and  the  breakers 
thundering  on  the  beach  or  against  the  rocks,  are  what 
the  sea  means  to  us.  The  lakes  we  love  the  best  are 
the  exact  opposite  of  this.  We  see  the  hills  en- 
circling them,  and  they  are  best  when  they  are  calm — 
with,  at  the  most,  only  the  ripples  that  lightly  break 
the  reflections  from  their  surface.  Storms  on  such 
lakes  are  not  without  danger,  but  they  are  so  feeble 
compared  with  those  of  the  sea  that  the  name  seems 
hardly  applicable  to  them  in  comparison. 

It  was  thus  that  Turner  interpreted  the  lakes  of 
Switzerland — and,  we  may  add,  those  of  Italy,  as  in 
the  beautiful  Lafy  of  Nemi,  with  the  water  in  the  deep 
hollow  peacefully  reflecting  the  tree-clad  slopes  that 
descend  steeply  to  its  margin.  What  lovely  dreams 


138  TURNER 

of  Constance,  Zurich,  Zug,  Lucerne,  Geneva,  he  has 
left  us  !  To  these  lake  drawings  he  gave  the  utmost 
witchery  of  light  and  colour.  He  clothed  Lucerne 
in  mystery,  now  of  rose,  and  now  of  blue,  now  of 
pearly  grey.  He  gave  his  utmost  range  of  colour  to 
a  Constance  sunset,  and  swathed  the  city  of  Zurich, 
stretching  away  into  the  hazy  distance,  in  luminous 
vesture  of  blue  and  gold.  How  gloriously  beautiful 
is  the  sunrise,  in  stronger  tones  of  blue  and  gold,  in 
the  Arth  from  the  Lake  of  Zug  \  Again  we  see  the 
light  of  the  rising  moon  reflected  in  the  still  water  of 
Geneva  beneath  the  towers  of  Lausanne,  and  again, 
mysterious  play  of  light  and  shade  in  the  gently 
rippling  water  of  Lucerne,  as  the  moon  shines  brokenly 
through  night-clouds  weird  in  form  behind  the  preci- 
pices of  the  Seelisberg. 

From  the  lakes  we  may  follow  Turner  to  the  final 
grandeur  and  solemnity  of  the  Central  Alps. 

There  are  few  more  impressive  drawings  by  him 
than  those  of  the  narrow  Alpine  gorges,  just  as  than 
such  gorges  there  are  few  more  impressive  things  in 
nature.  In  them  we  are  only  less  within  the  moun- 
tains than  when,  now  standing  upright  in  caverns  of 
which  we  cannot  see  the  roof,  now  bent  double  under 
huge  masses  of  shelving  rock,  we  follow  the  course  of 
streams  that  have  flowed  for  ages  in  the  utter  darkness 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   139 

underground.  Where  the  St.  Gothard  Pass  narrows 
from  the  meadows  of  Andermatt  into  the  gloom  of 
the  Schollenen  gorge,  and  over  the  roaring  waters  in 
the  chasm  below,  the  wind  blows  cold,  and  wraiths,  not 
wreaths,  of  cloud  drive  along,  though  we  know  that 
those  mighty  walls  of  rock  have  stood  apart  for  ages, 
yet  we  can  almost  imagine  that  we  see  them  closing  in 
upon  us.  Well  may  the  legend  have  arisen  that  only 
by  Satanic  help  could  the  chasm  have  been  bridged ! 
Turner's  drawings  of  the  Pass  and  its  frail-looking 
bridge  are  full  of  this  sense  of  impending  horror.  In 
Mr.  Rawlinson's  unpublished  Liber  plate  the  curves  of 
the  rocks,  of  which,  as  it  seems,  little  more  than  the 
bases  are  seen  in  the  picture,  might  be  curves  of  move- 
ment. One  huge,  partly  detached  mass  might  even 
now  be  leaning  to  its  fall  over  the  roadway,  and  we 
wonder  at  the  temerity  of  the  mule  drivers  who  linger 
beneath  it.  There  is  no  danger,  we  know  ;  but  what 
an  awful  sense  of  vast,  impersonal  power ! 

Stupendous  mass  and  energy  are  realised  in  the 
glacier  drawings.  In  the  Farnley  drawing  of  the  Mcr 
de  Glace,  and  the  Liber  plate,  Source  of  the  Arvelron, 
the  firs  into  which  masses  of  falling  rock  have  crashed 
look  as  if  they  were  being  worsted  in  a  futile  assault 
on  a  stronghold  of  giants — or  to  take  them  simply  for 
what  they  are,  the  obvious  precariousness  of  their 


HO  TURNER 

existence,  the  ruin  that  has  come  upon  some  of  them 
and  sooner  or  later  must  come  upon  them  all,  em- 
phasises the  immeasurable  unseen  force  that  slowly  yet 
certainly  is  bringing  down  the  mountains,  fractured  and 
riven  by  the  ever  returning  frost.  Was  not  the  summit 
of  Snowdon  once  a  valley  in  a  mountain  range  mighty 
as  are  the  Alps  to-day !  The  Alps  are  only  nouveaux 
riches ;  our  mountains  are  a  grand,  old,  but  impover- 
ished aristocracy.  In  my  Cheshire  garden  is  a  granite 
boulder,  borne  whence,  and  how  long  ago,  on  a  great, 
moving  mass  of  ice,  the  geologist  perhaps  can  say. 
We  go  to  Switzerland  to  learn  what  our  own  land  has 
been,  as  well  as  what  Switzerland  now  is.  Many  life- 
times may  see  no  change  in  the  mountains  ;  the  move- 
ment of  the  glacier  is  imperceptible  ;  none  the  less  the 
mighty  forces  of  nature  are  doing  their  work.  Turner's 
drawings  give  us  a  sense  of  their  activity.  It  is  as 
if  we  were  shown  in  a  moment  that  which  it  takes 
them  long  years  to  do.  They  are  studies  in  dynamics, 
not  in  statics.  In  the  water-colour  sketch  high  up  on 
the  Mer  de  Glace,  the  hummocks  of  ice  might  be 
waves  passing  behind  each  other  down  into  the  unseen 
reaches  of  the  steeply  descending  valley.  Such,  indeed, 
they  are  ;  but  not  waves  raised  by  the  wind,  and  how 
incredibly  slow  in  movement !  The  crack  in  one 
of  the  peaks  of  ice  almost  makes  us  expect  to  see 


TURNER'S   READING   OF  EARTH    141 

the  distant  aiguilles  more  deeply  fractured  while  we 
look  at  them. 

The  clouds  that  gloom  the  scene  in  places,  and 
by  contrast  gift  the  sunlit  heights  with  greater  bright- 
ness, do  not  merely  visibly  increase  its  grandeur  ;  they 
always  carry  with  them  the  thought  of  danger  and 
of  death.  And,  mere  vapour  though  they  be,  they 
are  the  chief  agents  in  the  slow  destruction  of  the 
mountains.  They  are  the  armies  of  the  sea  sent 
to  humble  its  proud  neighbour  the  earth.  They  come 
from  the  sea,  return  to  it,  and  come  again.  They  let 
fall  the  disintegrating  rain,  which,  hardening  into  ice, 
rends  apart  the  rocks  with  resistless  force.  They  form 
the  torrents  which  carry  down  the  debris.  They  pass, 
and  leave  great  fields  of  snow  behind  them,  which 
form  the  swiftly  descending  avalanches,  or  the  slow- 
moving  glaciers.  It  is  of  this  constant  warfare  of 
nature's  forces  that  we  inevitably  think  as  we  look 
at  Turner's  Alpine  drawings. 

At  times,  indeed,  he  sounds  a  truce.  Such  is  the 
Superga  drawing.  In  the  illustration  to  Rogers'  poem 
'The  Alps  at  Daybreak,'  we  can  think  only  of  the 
glorious  beauty,  not  of  the  latent  terror  of  the  scene. 
Ruskin  says  that  if  he  wanted  to  give  the  most  faithful 
idea  possible  of  a  certain  geological  structure  he  should 
take  up  this  drawing.  He  rightly  condemns  the 


142  TURNER 

absurd  figures  :  men  and  hounds  chasing  the  chamois 
over  the  great  snow-fields  with  as  little  hesitation 
or  difficulty  as  if  they  were  on  level  ground.  Turner 
has  construed  too  literally  in  this  instance  his  duty 
as  an  illustrator.  These  hunters,  who  run  and  leap 
where  mere  men  would  tread  with  utmost  care,  should 
be  spirits  of  the  mountains.  Let  the  absurdity  pass  ; 
for  how  exhilarating  it  makes  the  scene  !  Who  would 
not  exclaim  that  the  sun  is  rejoicing  as  a  strong  man 
to  run  a  race !  At  once,  as  he  rises  into  view,  he 
floods  the  scene  with  glory ;  and  so  exquisitely  is  the 
light  rendered,  that  we  imagine  more  than  we  actually 
see :  we  credit  the  sparkle  where  only  the  gleam 
is  given  ;  we  feel  the  invigorating  freshness  of  the 
morning  air ! 

Let  us  return  to  our  own  land.  We  have  seen 
that  Turner  was  moved  by  the  sight  of  the  Lake 
Mountains  across  Morecambe  Bay.  We  might  fol- 
low him  all  over  the  island  —  some  of  us  have 
literally  done  so — and  find  him  stirred  here  by  its 
beauty  and  there  by  its  grandeur.  Leaving  the 
grandeur  for  a  moment,  we  may  surely  say  that  even 
he  could  hardly  exaggerate  the  beauty.  He  could 
but  use  the  means  an  artist  has  for  lessening  the  gap 
there  must  be  between  any  fixed,  literal  rendering 
of  nature  on  paper  or  canvas,  and  her  vastness  of 


TURNER'S  READING   OF  EARTH    143 

space,  fullness  of  light,  and  ceaseless  movement  and 
change.  Not  that  one  wishes  to  claim  for  his 
'  reading '  of  our  land  a  complete  and  exclusive 
truthfulness.  It  always  bears  the  stamp  of  his 
idiosyncrasy ;  it  has  not  only  his  manner  but  his 
mannerisms.  We  are  always  wise  if  we  call  in  more 
than  one  expert ;  and,  finally,  not  all  the  experts, 
in  these  things,  are  to  see  for  us  ;  their  function  is 
to  teach  us  to  see  for  ourselves.  And  has  not 
Turner  helped  us  to  see  the  beauty  of  the  hills  and 
valleys  of  Devonshire,  as  in  Crossing  the  Broof^  and 
such  drawings  as  the  Totnes  ?  In  the  Arundel  and 
the  Brlghtllng  Observatory,  we  have  all  the  broad 
spaciousness  of  the  Sussex  Downs  with  the  wide 
expanse  of  sky  above  and  around  them.  There  is 
fine  rendering  of  impression  in  such  drawings  of  the 
more  robust  landscape  of  the  hill-country  of  Lanca- 
shire and  Yorkshire,  as  the  Crook  of  Lune,  the  Kirkby 
Lonsdale  Churchyard,  and  the  Richmond  from  the  Moors. 
One  can  find  no  words  to  express  the  sense  that  is 
conveyed  by  the  first  of  these  three  drawings  of 
beauty  of  colour  and  contour,  of  tenderest  play  of 
light  and  shade  in  the  warm  afternoon  sunshine,  of 
subtlest  gradations  of  tone  that  carry  our  sight  by 
insensible  degrees,  as  in  nature  itself,  from  the  river 
rushing  tumultuously  through  the  narrow  gorge  im- 


i44  TURNER 

mediately  below  us,  along  its  course  under  the  receding 
hills,  or  over  the  valley,  with  its  infinite  suggestiveness 
of  trees  and  homesteads,  to  the  distance  mingled 
of  grey  and  blue  and  purple  where  Whernside  shows 
clear  over  the  nearer  fells,  while  the  summit  of 
Ingleborough  is  veiled  by  glowing  clouds  !  As  with 
this  drawing,  so  it  is  with  others,  with  numbers 
of  these  drawings  of  Lonsdale  and  Ribblesdale,  of 
Wharfedale,  Swaledale,  Teesdale,  and  the  rest ;  one 
sits  and  looks  long  even  at  mere  reproductions  of 
them,  divided  between  the  keenest  enjoyment  of  their 
beauty  and  an  insatiable  desire  to  be  away  in  the  dales 
and  upon  the  moors,  where  one  has  wandered  for  days 
together  with  Turner  often  in  mind. 

So  much  alone  we  must  say  about  Turner's  render- 
ing of  the  hill-country,  which  is  beautiful,  if  often 
spaciously  and  therefore  solemnly  beautiful,  rather 
than  grand.  We  might  seem  to  be  making  for  an 
anticlimax  in  turning  to  the  grandeur  of  Britain  after 
that  of  Switzerland.  Happily,  for  those  who  must 
needs  stay  at  home,  impressiveness  does  not  increase, 
in  mathematical  ratio  to  increase  in  size.  We  must 
take  form,  colour,  and  atmospheric  effect  into  account. 
The  vast  antiquity  of  our  mountains,  also,  makes  a 
strong  appeal  to  us.  By  as  much  lower  than  the 
Alps  as  they  are,  by  so  much  longer  have  they  resisted 


TURNER'S  READING  OF  EARTH   145 

fate.  And  how  much  of  power  is  left  to  them ! 
Look  at  Turner's  Gordale  Scar  and  Hardrazv  Fa//, 
his  sketch  of  Great  End  and  Scatcfell  Pikes — do  we 
not  hear  the  murmur  of  '  Glaramara's  inmost  caves '  ? 
— his  Langdale  Pikes,  or  the  Ben  Arthur  of  the  Liber 
Studiorum,  and  say  if  we  need  leave  our  island  to 
realise  the  power  of  the  hills  and  of  the  forces  that 
war  against  them  ! 

We  must  not  forget  also,  if  we  do  no  more  than 
mention  it,  that  Turner  follows  the  English  river — 
than  which,  what  is  more  beautiful  ? — from  source 
to  sea,  as  well  as  showing  us  the  greater  Rhine,  and 
something  of  the  rivers  of  France. 

Hamerton,  in  summing  up  his  estimate  of  Turner 
as  a  landscape  painter,  says  that  he  was  '  a  student  of 
nature  whose  range  was  vast  indeed  .  .  .  yet  not 
universal,  for  he  never  adequately  illustrated  the 
familiar  forest  trees,  and  had  not  the  sentiment  of  the 
forest,  neither  had  he  the  rustic  sentiment  in  its 
perfection.'  On  the  whole  this  is  true,  though 
some  of  the  drawings  recently  exhibited  to  the 
public  for  the  first  time  might  have  modified  some- 
what Hamerton's  saying  as  to  the  forest  trees. 
Turner's  travels  hardly  gave  him  the  chance  of 
acquiring  the  sentiment  of  the  forest,  of  the  fear- 
compelling  loneliness  and  silence  which  Boecklin, 


146  TURNER 

familiar  with  the  forests  of  Germany,  called  in  the 
aid  of  a  strange  monster  to  express.  Yet  the  land- 
scape in  Rizpah  does  not  fall  far  short  of  this.  That 
Turner  had  not  the  rustic  sentiment  in  perfection  we 
may  readily  grant.  Even  Ruskin  did  not  maintain 
that  Turner  had  no  limitations.  Without  crossing 
the  border  between  landscape  and  genre  painting 
Constable  got  into  intimate  touch  with  the  daily 
round  and  common  task  of  simple  country-life  in 
such  pictures  as  The  Hay- Wain,  The  Cornfield  and 
The  Valley  Farm.  We  are  far  removed  in  them  from 
the  bustle  and  turmoil  of  life ;  we  are  where  men 
work  slowly,  steadily,  quietly,  as  the  seed  germinates 
and  the  corn  and  the  fruit  ripen.  We  think  of  soil 
and  stones,  of  damp  houses  and  of  sudden  showers 
from  trees  when  the  wind  stirs  them  after  rain.  How 
plainly  we  should  hear  the  ticking  of  the  clock  were 
we  in  the  house  of  The  Glebe  Farm!  Of  all  this 
there  is  nothing  in  Turner,  except  in  some  unfinished 
drawings  and  paintings,  such  as  are  now  to  be  seen  in 
the  national  collections,  and  here  and  there  in  smaller 
finished  works.  And  these  exceptions — reminding 
us  of  Constable,  and  even  of  De  Wint — seem  to  show 
that  Turner  was  not  devoid  of  the  rustic  sentiment, 
but  that  it  was  overwhelmed  by  his  feeling  for  the 
epic  grandeur  and  the  idyllic  beauty  of  nature. 


TURNER'S  READING  OF   EARTH   147 

Of  his  sense  of  the  idyllic  beauty  of  nature,  and, 
which  concerns  us  now,  particularly  of  the  idyllic 
beauty  of  the  English  lowlands  and  of  the  borderland, 
where  the  hills  are  dying  down  into  the  plains,  there 
is  no  lack  of  evidence. 

I  must  say  little,  but  yet  something,  about  Turner's 
rendering  of  trees.  It  may  seem  a  trifling  subject 
after  mountains,  lakes  and  rivers.  But  one  brief  word 
shows  them  to  have  a  significance  that  these  do  not 
possess,  and  of  a  wholly  different,  a  higher  kind — 
they  have  life.  And  if  the  reader  will  look  over  the 
illustrations  in  this  book  he  will  find  that,  although 
Turner  may  often  have  treated  trees  conventionally, 
he  none  the  less  interpreted  their  life  sympathetically, 
almost  to  the  extent  of  animisim,  or  of  the  pathetic 
fallacy  again.  He  was  carefully  observant  of  their 
vital  structure,  he  showed  them  in  peaceful  youth,  in 
vigorous  maturity,  in  dismembered  and  decaying  age, 
in  the  stark  aspect  of  their  death. 

M.  de  la  Sizeranne  says,  somewhat  self-contra- 
dictorily,  that  all  that  England  does  not  possess  haunts 
the  Englishman's  spirit,  and  yet  that  Turner  is  English 
in  his  passion  for  the  sea,  '  the  great  highway  by  which 
England  communicates  with  the  world's  immensity, 
and  through  which  the  British  Empire  is  in  touch  with 
its  colonies.'  Only  an  Englishman,  he  thinks,  could 


148  TURNER 

have  conceived  the  idea  of  painting  The  Fighting 
Temeraire ;  yet  Turner  had  been  familiar  from  child- 
hood with  the  Thames  and  its  shipping.  Evidently, 
in  this  particular  at  least,  the  common  never  became 
the  commonplace  to  Turner  ;  the  passion  for  the  sea 
lasted  to  the  end  of  his  life.  Is  it  exaggeration  to  say 
that  in  his  paintings,  his  drawings  and  his  sketches  he 
interpreted  its  every  mood  from  perfect  calm  to  the 
utmost  fury  of  the  storm,  that  he  studied  it  under  every 
phase  of  light  and  colour,  at  all  hours  of  the  day  from 
earliest  dawn  until  the  coming  of  the  deep  blackness  of 
night  that  ends  all  seeing  ?  In  the  next  chapter  I  have 
something  to  say  about  Turner's  interest  in  shipping 
and  the  life  of  the  sailor,  and,  inevitably,  at  the  same 
time,  about  his  rendering  of  the  sea  in  storm.  I  will 
only  say  further  here  that  as  with  the  mountains,  so 
with  the  sea,  it  was  with  a  sense  of  its  dynamic 
power,  when  driven  to  action  by  the  wind,  that 
Turner  was  most  impressed.  So  often  does  he  re- 
present it  thus,  that  even  when  he  shows  it  in  what 
looks  like  playful  mood,  lightly  toying  with  the  ships 
and  boats  that  venture  on  it,  or  when  it  is  in  perfect 
calm,  we  feel  as  if  there  were  deception,  or  but  a 
brief  interval  of  quiet  in  a  nature  given  to  sudden 
outbursts  of  ungovernable  rage.  The  calm  of  the 
Scarborough,  in  the  '  Harbours  of  England,'  and  the 


TURNER'S   READING  OF  EARTH   149 

exhilarating  mood  of  the  sea  in  the  Whitbj^  only 
presage  the  wrath  of  the  Liber  plate,  The  Yorkshire 
Coast,  or  of  the  Wrecl^  off  Hastings. 

I  have  endeavoured  in  this  chapter  to  hint  in  words 
at  the  range  and  beauty  and  power  of  Turner's  picture- 
reading  of  the  earth.  We  have  now  to  follow  his 
reading  of  the  life  of  man,  of  whom  the  earth  is 
the  dwelling-place. 


IV 
AN   EPIC   OF   HUMANITY 

I  HAVE  given  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book  the 
reasons  for  my  writing  this,  the  last  chapter  of  it. 
Not  only  in  Turner's  illustrations  of  poetry  and  history, 
but  again  and  again,  almost  invariably,  in  pictures  that 
are  primarily  landscapes,  there  is  a  human  interest  that, 
when  we  consider  it  cumulatively,  linking  all  the  pictures 
together,  forms  itself  into  a  great  epic  of  humanity. 
The  figures  may  be  insignificant  in  size — they  usually 
are ;  they  may  be  badly  drawn,  they  are  often 
ludicrously  badly  drawn  ;  in  many  cases  we  might,  if 
we  were  so  minded,  ignoring  any  further  meaning, 
regard  them,  as  we  should  sheep  or  cattle,  as  being 
introduced  merely  for  purely  pictorial  purposes,  as 
patches  of  colour  and  so  forth.  We  may  often,  for  such 
purposes,  wish  them  away.  But  in  many  instances, 
figures,  and  ships  or  buildings  in  connexion  with  the 
figures,  count  for  so  much  in  the  picture,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  think  of  them  as  merely  incidental.  Separate 
150 


AN    EPIC   OF    HUMANITY          151 

consideration  of  what  obviously  meant  so  much  to 
Turner  himself  seems  to  me  essential  to  an  adequate 
study  of  his  life-work. 

We  may  well  begin  with  instances  of  his  interest  in 
mythology.  The  landscape  painter  cannot  fail  to 
wonder  what  is  the  source  of  the  power  and  life  and 
beauty  that  confront  him  in  the  visible  universe. 
Turner's  mere  learning  in  mythology  was  slight  enough. 
This  has  already  been  said.  But  beyond  the  little  he 
learned  from  books  there  was  his  own  communing  with 
nature  and  life  ;  and  this  is  the  stuff  out  of  which  all 
mythologies  have  been  made,  and  are  still  being  made. 
How  the  great  sun-myth  of  Apollo  must  have  appealed 
to  one  who  so  often  watched  the  morning  victory  of 
the  sun,  and  his  defeat  at  nightfall !  Mr.  Monkhouse 
makes  a  slip,  remarkable  for  him,  in  writing  of  Ulysses 
deriding  Polyphemus,  when  he  says  that  the  sun  is 
dying.  In  the  picture  itself  the  heads  of  the  horses 
of  Apollo  can  be  seen  as  they  draw  his  chariot  above 
the  sea-horizon.  Apollo  and  the  Python  is  one  of  the 
pictures  in  which  the  figures  absolutely  dominate  the 
scene,  and  give  to  the  landscape  its  significance.  Here 
is  the  old-time  personification  of  the  daily  phenomena 
that  formed  the  subject-matter  of  many  if  not  the 
greater  number  of  Turner's  pictures  and  drawings. 
In  a  rock-encumbered  valley,  flanked  by  precipitous 


152  TURNER 

mountains,  the  conflict  between  the  spirit  of  light 
and  the  spirit  of  darkness  is  being  waged.  Were  it 
not  that  victory  has  plainly  declared  itself  for  the 
former,  we  might  well  think  the  combatants  unequally 
matched.  We  should  have  trembled  for  this  youth 
when  his  huge  and  horrible  foe  advanced  upon  him,  as 
the  Israelites  must  have  trembled  for  David  when 
Goliath  came  forth  to  meet  him.  But  this  is  a  god, 
there  is  a  circle  of  light  around  his  head  ;  he  has  no 
fear  of  defeat.  He  has  sent  arrow  after  arrow  into 
the  monster's  coiling  body,  a  great  gaping  wound  has 
opened  out,  and  he  is  writhing  in  his  death-agony. 
His  jaws  are  widely  opened,  but  if  they  close  it  will 
not  be  upon  his  foe.  Calmly  the  god  watches  him, 
with  his  bow  in  his  left  hand,  and  another  arrow  in 
his  right,  to  see  if  aught  more  be  needed  to  complete 
his  victory.  No,  it  is  complete  !  The  monster  that 
in  his  struggles  breaks  down  the  trees,  sends  great 
masses  of  rock  hurtling  through  the  air,  and  from 
whose  jaws  foul  vapours  arise,  has  fallen  helplessly  into 
a  crevasse,  and  a  pool  of  his  poisonous  black  blood 
is  spreading  over  the  ground.  Yet  this  victory  has  to 
be  won  again  and  again  ;  as  the  huge  worm  dies  another 
of  the  brood,  small  as  yet,  issues  from  his  body ! 

This  great  picture  has  compelled  universal  admira- 
tion ;    it    has    literally    inspired   with   awe.     Though 


'53 

Turner  went  to  literature  for  his  subject,  it  was  but  for 
the  form  of  it  that  he  went.  He  found  in  Ovid,  and 
what  other  poets  he  read,  only  their  version  of  what  he 
had  already  learned  from  nature  and  life.  It  has  been 
pointed  out  that  he  made  free  use  of  his  literary 
material ;  he  shaped  it,  as  he  shaped  the  phenomena  of 
nature,  to  suit  the  needs  of  his  own  imagination.  Tb 
the  title  of  the  picture  in  the  Academy  catalogue  he 
appended  lines  of  his  own  composing,  which  combine 
two  of  the  dragon-stories  of  Ovid's  '  Metamorphoses,' 
the  one  of  Apollo  and  the  other  of  Cadmus  : 

Envenom'd  by  thy  darts,  the  monster  coil'd, 
Portentous,  horrible,  and  vast,  his  snake-like  form  : 
Rent  the  huge  portal  of  his  rocky  den, 
And  in  his  throes  of  death,  he  tore 
His  many  wounds  in  one,  while  earth 
Absorbing,  blacken'd  with  his  gore. 

The  figure  of  the  youthful  god  shows  not  only  that 
Turner  could  draw  the  figure  quite  competently  if  he 
wished  to  do  so,  but  that  he  could  also  make  it  finely 
expressive.  The  frame  and  limbs  of  the  archer  are 
relaxed  after  the  strain  they  have  just  undergone,  but 
the  head  is  thrown  forward  as  he  closely  watches  the 
movements  of  his  dying  foe.  M.  Chesneau  well  says 
that  the  strangely  imaginative  French  painter,  Gustave 
Moreau,  would  have  recognised  in  this  figure  the  work 


154  TURNER 

of  a  genius  akin  to  his  own.  And  while  the  god 
visibly  embodies  all  that  is  bright  and  pure — and  yet, 
we  may  well  say,  he  is  a  Greek  god,  and  by  no  means 
a  St.  George  of  Christian  legend — the  dragon  has 
perhaps  no  rival  in  art  as  an  embodiment  of  all  that  is 
dark  and  loathsomely  evil. 

Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus,  is,  in  the  significance  of 
its  subject,  a  close  companion  to  Jfpollo  and  the  Python, 
and  no  less  wonderful  in  imagination.  There  were 
eighteen  years  between  the  painting  of  the  two  pictures, 
181 1  being  the  date  of  the  latter,  and  1829  that  of  the 
former,  which  shows  to  the  full  the  magnificent  ren- 
dering of  light  and  colour  to  which  Turner  had  then 
attained.  To  the  splendour  of  the  sky  at  sunrise  in 
this  picture  reference  has  already  been  made.  The 
arrows  of  Apollo  are  shooting  out  in  every  direction 
and  driving  back  the  forces  of  darkness  which  still 
linger  along  the  sea,  and  behind  the  ships  and  the 
mountains.  After  what  a  night,  upon  that  rocky  isle,  is 
the  sun  rising  again !  Ulysses  the  wanderer,  and  his 
companions,  seeking  hospitality,  had  been  imprisoned  by 
the  one-eyed  monster,  Polyphemus  the  Cyclops,  within 
his  cave ;  two  of  the  company  he  had  killed  and 
devoured  ;  and  threatened  UJysses  and  the  remainder 
with  a  like  fate.  But  Ulysses,  having  made  him  drunk 
with  wine,  drove  a  blazing  bar  of  wood  into  his  eye 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY          155 

and  blinded  him,  and  though  he  sat  in  the  doorway  of 
the  cave,  Ulysses  and  his  companions  escaped  by 
hanging  under  the  Cyclops'  sheep  as  they  passed 
out  of  it.  When  they  had  reached  their  ships, 
Ulysses  cried  out  in  derision  of  the  monster  whom  he 
had  outwitted,  and  twice  Polyphemus  hurled  a  vast 
rock  which  all  but  struck  the  ship  of  the  derider. 
This  last  scene  is  the  one  chosen  by  Turner  for  his 
picture.  Ulysses,  waving  the  still  blazing  brand  with 
which  he  has  blinded  the  monster,  and  loudly  taunting 
him,  stands  on  the  high  poop  of  his  vessel,  a  splendid 
galley,  furnished  with  both  oars  and  lofty  sails,  but 
such  an  one  as  the  Greeks  never  built.  Turner  was  no 
plodding  antiquary ;  he  has  ever  to  be  judged  by  the 
letter,  not  by  the  spirit.  Round  the  prow  of  the  ship 
water-nymphs  are  disporting  themselves,  while  the  rays 
of  the  rising  sun  are  reflected  from  them  as  if  flashed  from 
sparkling  jewels.  High  on  the  flank  of  one  of  the  island 
mountains  is  the  vast,  shadowy  form  of  Polyphemus, 
hardly  distinguishable  from  the  mountains  themselves. 
In  the  Odyssey,  Ulysses  says  that  he  was  a  man  'of 
monstrous  size,  who  shepherded  his  flocks  alone  and 
afar,  and  was  not  conversant  with  others,  but  dwelt 
apart  in  lawlessness  of  mind.  Yea,  for  he  was  a  mon- 
strous thing  and  fashioned  marvellously,  nor  was  he 
like  to  any  man  that  lives  by  bread,  but  like  a  wooded 


156  TURNER 

peak  of  the  towering  hills,  which  stands  out  apart  and 
alone  from  others.'  Turner's  Polyphemus  falls  nothing 
short  of  this  description.  It  is  as  if  the  '  Theseus '  of 
the  Parthenon,  increased  a  hundred  times  in  size,  were 
beside  himself  with  rage,  for  the  monster,  as  he  hears 
the  taunts  of  Ulysses,  grips  his  head  with  one  hand, 
and  raises  high  the  other  with  impotently  threatening 
gesture.  This  is  what  Apollo  looks  out  upon  from 
his  chariot,  as  his  horses — those  whose  heads  faced  the 
*  Theseus '  on  the  Parthenon  pediment — bring  him  up 
above  the  sea-horizon,  and  we  may  well  think  of  him 
as  rejoicing  to  see  brute  force  outwitted  by  cunning 
intelligence. 

These  are  the  two  finest  of  Turner's  mythological 
pictures,  the  ones  in  which  his  art  showed  itself  easily 
able  to  give  to  myth  and  legend  pictorial  expression 
that,  as  the  Greeks  said  the  Zeus  of  Phidias  added 
something  to  the  existing  conception  of  him,  adds 
something  to  our  sense  of  the  wonder  of  the  old  tales 
in  which  men  expressed  their  sense  of  the  wonder  of 
the  universe. 

Among  other  pictures  of  mythological  purport,  The 
Goddess  of  Discord  in  the  Garden  of  the  Hesperides  is 
one  that  asks  for  more  than  mere  mention,  if  only  for 
the  terrible  monster  in  it.  The  picture,  painted  in 
1 806,  was  done  in  rivalry  of  Poussin.  Its  geology  is 


AN    EPIC   OF    HUMANITY  157 

faulty,  ^nd  Ruskin  had  much  to  say  against  the 
picture,  his  bias  against  classical  landscape  making 
him  somewhat  unjust  to  it.  In  the  fifth  volume 
of  '  Modern  Painters '  he  corrected  one  erroneous 
opinion  about  it  that  he  had  written  in  his  earlier 
notes  on  Turner's  works.  Faulty  geology  notwith- 
standing— or  aiding  : — it  is  a  magnificently  impressive 
composition.  Into  this  gloomy  mountain  valley  the 
sun  only  obtains  a  scanty,  grudged  admission.  Ate, 
the  goddess  of  discord,  is  receiving  from  one  of  the 
Hesperides  the  golden  apple  w-hich  she  will  throw 
among  the  guests  at  the  wedding-feast  of  Peleus} 
angered  because  she  alone  among  the  deities  has  been 
uninvited,  and  will  thus  create  jealousy  between  Hera 
and  Athene  and  Aphrodite,  with  direful  result  in  the  ten 
years'  siege  of  Troy.  The  Hesperides,  the  Maidens 
of  the  West,  personified  the  westerly  winds  and  sun- 
shine that  filled  the  earth  with  fruitfulness  ;  and  the 
Dragon,  Ladon,  personified  the  dry  south  wind, 
blowing  off  the  Sahara,  and  denying  fruitfulness  to 
lands  unsheltered  from  it.  The  maidens  in  Turner's 
picture  look  as  if  they  had  been  nurtured  in  a  land  of 
healthfulness  and  plenty ;  the  dragon  looks  as  harsh  and 
dry  as  the  wind  he  personifies.  It  is  as  if  life  had 
been  given  to  a  petrified  skeleton.  A  jagged  edge  of 
rock  might  be  slowly  crawling  towards  an  overhanging 


158  TURNER 

precipice.  The  bony  thinness  of  his  jaws  and  the 
empty  eye-socket  have  led  to  the  suggestion  that 
Turner  had  studied  the  fossil  remains  of  some  extinct 
monster ;  but  whatever  basis  in  fact  there  may  be,  to 
the  imagination  of  the  artist  it  is  due  that  here  is  a 
creature  to  which  we  can  easily  credit  such  blighting 
malignancy  that  nothing  could  live  where  he  had 
dragged  his  scaly  length,  and  in  air  into  which  he  had 
exhaled  his  poisonous  breath. 

The  number  of  paintings  into  which  mythological 
figures  are  introduced  is  quite  considerable.  In  most 
of  them,  as  in  The  Golden  Bough,  referred  to  on  an 
earlier  page,  the  figures  are  small  in  size  and  merely 
vivify  the  landscape.  Yet,  as  was  said  with  reference 
to  the  picture  just  mentioned,  we  cannot  feel  the  same 
about  the  landscape,  knowing  what  the  figures  signify, 
as  we  should  were  they  absent  or  without  their  par- 
ticular significance.  It  is  so  with  such  large  oil 
paintings  as  The  Bay  of  TSaice,  with  Apollo  and  the 
Sibyl,  Apollo  and  Daphne,  The  Vale  of  Tempe,  Mercury 
and  Argus,  Jason  in  search  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  and 
others.  To  an  ideal  rendering  of  Tivoli  is  given 
a  title,  The  Rape  of  Troserpine,  that  is  perplexing 
until  we  have  discovered  that  what  at  first  glance 
seems  to  be  a  bonfire  or  a  burning  of  leaves  and 
rubbish  in  one  corner  of  the  picture  is  meant  to  repre- 


AN   EPIC   OF   HUMANITY          159 

sent  the  god  of  the  underworld  carrying  off  in  his 
chariot  the  terrified  maiden  amid  the  cries  and  gesticu- 
lations of  her  companions.  We  need  not  catalogue  all 
these  pictures,  or  dwell  upon  the  myths  they  rather 
call  to  our  minds  than  illustrate.  It  is  enough  to 
show  how  constantly  these  things  were  in  Turner's 
mind.  They  evidence  that  exalted  view  of  nature 
which  makes  a  great  part  of  his  landscape  painting 
describable  as  pageantry. 

That  misnamed  work  the  Liber  Studiorum  includes 
several  mythological  subjects.  One  of  the  plates 
repeats  the  Jason  oil  painting  ;  and  here,  where  we 
have  another  dragon-contest,  one  huge  coil  of  the 
monster  suddenly  rising  above  the  thicket  so  that 
Jason  can  see  it,  not  only  the  bones  on  the  ground, 
but  the  hollow,  riven  trees,  are  in  sympathy  with  the 
'  literary '  subject ;  for,  as  Ruskin  says,  '  the  painter 
addresses  thereby  that  morbid  and  fearful  condition  of 
mind  which  he  has  endeavoured  to  excite  in  the 
spectator,  and  which  in  reality  would  have  seen  in 
every  trunk  and  bough,  as  it  penetrated  into  the  deeper 
thicket,  the  object  of  its  terror.'  The  figure  of 
Jason  is  very  expressive.  His  back  is  towards  us,  yet 
we  can  see  that  his  movement  has  been  arrested  by  the 
sudden  sight  of  his  foe,  that  he  is  ready  at  need  to  slip 
back  into  hiding,  or,  if  he  find  an  opportunity,  to  rush 


160  TURNER 

forward  and  deliver  an  unexpected  blow.  In  the 
Procris  and  Cephalus  the  landscape  is  tenderly  beautiful, 
and,  as  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke  says,  the  trees  seem  to 
be  leaning  as  if  in  mute  sympathy  over  the  lover  and 
the  dying  maiden  whom  he  has  unwittingly  slain.  We 
need  only  note  that  Syrinx  fleeing  from  Pan,  ^E  sac  us 
and  Hesperie,  Narcissus  and  Echo  and  Cjlaucus  and 
Scylla  are  other  similar  subjects  among  the  Liber 
plates. 

Some  of  the  narratives  of  the  Old  Testament  could 
not  fail  to  stir  Turner's  imagination  ;  they  have  epic 
grandeur,  and  whenever  we  think  of  them  we  in- 
evitably give  them  a  landscape  setting,  among  the  bare 
hills  of  Judasa,  or  the  mountains  of  the  southern 
wilderness,  or  the  pyramids  and  temples  that  flanked 
the  ebbing  and  flowing  waters  of  the  Nile.  The 
history  and  legends  of  the  Jewish  people,  often  so 
scenically  dramatic,  could  not  fail  to  appeal  to  his 
imagination,  and  lent  themselves  to  pictures  in  which 
the  figures  could  be  subordinated  pictorially  to  the 
landscape.  Two  of  his  latest  works  are  Shade  and 
Darkness — The  Evening  of  the  'Deluge,  and  Light  and 
Colour — The  Morning  after  the  Deluge.  We  might 
have  been  sure  beforehand  that  he  would  not,  as  he  did 
not,  pass  by  the  plagues  of  Egypt  and  the  destruction 
of  Sodom.  Rizpah  watching  the  bones  of  her  children 


AN    EPIC   OF    HUMANITY  161 

is  a  subject  finely  treated  in  both  the  oil  painting  and 
the  Liber  plate.  Illustration  of  the  New  Testament 
was  outside  the  scope  of  his  genius.  When  he 
painted  a  Holy  Family  he  produced  merely  a  poor 
Reynolds,  just  as  when  he  treated  classical  subjects 
with  figures  filling  a  large  part  of  the  canvas  he 
produced  merely  weak  imitations  of  Titian.  The 
temptation  in  the  wilderness  accounts  for  a  small 
drawing  in  which  a  figure  perched  high  on  a  slender 
Gothic  pinnacle  shows  that  Turner  was  either  wholly 
ignorant  of  Syrian  architecture  or  was  sublimely  in- 
different to  archaeological  accuracy — indeed,  he  was 
both.  Pilate  Washing  his  Hands  is  a  picture  that  must 
be  written  down  a  failure.  The  Apocalyptic  Vision 
was  sure  to  appeal  to  his  imagination,  and  he  painted 
an  Angel  Standing  in  the  Sun,  again  without  success. 
Such  pictures  as  these  are  interesting,  not  for  their  art, 
but  as  showing  how  widely  Turner's  imagination  ranged 
and  how  high  it  soared. 

Two  quotations,  appended  by  Turner  to  the  titles  of 
pictures,  will  show  how  we  ought  to  understand  the 
many  architectural  compositions,  in  which  also  some 
actual  historical  incident  is  often  introduced,  taken 
from  Greece,  Carthage,  Rome  or  Venice.  From 
Byron's '  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,'  he  quotes  for  the 
picture  bearing  that  title  the  lines  : — 


162  TURNER 

And  now,  fair  Italy, 

Thou  art  the  garden  of  the  world,  the  home 
Of  all  art  yields  and  nature  can  decree — 
Even  in  thy  desert  what  is  like  to  thee  ? 
Thy  very  weeds  are  beautiful,  thy  waste 
More  rich  than  other  climes'  fertility, 
Thy  wreck  a  glory,  and  thy  ruin  grac'd 
With  an  immaculate  charm  which  cannot  be  defaced. 

For  Caligula's  Palace  and  ^Bridge  he  gives  lines  of 
his  own  writing,  from  the  mysterious  Fallacies  of  Hope, 
which,  if  lacking  the  Byronic  beauty  and  power,  are 
yet  Byronic  in  spirit : — 

What  now  remains  of  all  the  mighty  bridge 
Which  made  the  Lucrine  like  an  inner  pool, 
Caligula,  but  massy  fragments  left 
As  monuments  of  doubt  and  ruined  hopes, 
Yet  gleaming  in  the  morning's  ray,  that  tell 
How  Raise's  shore  was  loved  in  times  gone  by. 

Is  the  burden  of  all  these  pictures  of  Turner's  the 
cry,  *  Vanity  of  vanities,  saith  the  preacher,  vanity 
of  vanities  ;  all  is  vanity.  What  profit  hath  a  man 
of  all  his  labour  which  he  taketh  under  the  sun  ? 
One  generation  passeth  away  and  another  generation 
cometh  :  but  the  earth  abideth  for  ever '  ?  The 
rise  of  cities  and  nations,  followed  by  their  inevitable 
decline  and  downfall,  seems  to  have  oppressed  Turner. 
But  that  he  had  no  vision  of  an  ultimate  goal  to  be 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY  163 

reached  by  humanity — nothing  like  the  prophecy  with 
which  the  English  historian  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  closes  his  book,  calmly  anticipating  that  in 
the  future  will  prevail  '  the  love  of  peace,  the  sense  of 
the  brotherhood  of  mankind,  the  recognition  of  the 
sacredness  and  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  life ' — who 
can  say  ? 

Among  the  plates  of  the  Liber  Studiorum  is  one 
entitled  The  Temple  of  Jupiter  in  the  Island  of  Aegina. 
Mr.  Frank  Short,  who  has  so  faithfully  reproduced 
some  of  the  Liber  plates,  regrets  that  such  a  beautiful 
composition  should  have  in  it  the  incident  of  a  girl 
dancing  and  beating  a  tambourine  for  the  amusement 
of  a  group  of  reclining  Turks.  The  temple  is  in 
ruins.  In  another  version  of  the  same  subject  the 
temple  is  still  intact.  Again  there  is  a  dance  :  but 
this  time,  as  the  title  tells  us,  the  people  are  dancing 
the  national  dance,  the  Romaika.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  point  the  moral  of  this  contrast. 

It  was  upon  Carthage  and  Rome  rather  than  upon 
Greece  that  Turner  drew  for  these  historical  com- 
positions. Greece  was  to  him  rather  the  land  of  myth 
and  legend  ;  and  while  Italy  also  meant  this  to  him, 
the  splendid  achievements  of  Rome,  of  the  Rome  the 
ruins  of  which  he  had  seen  and  drawn  and  painted, 
were  at  least  equally  dominant  in  his  thoughts  of  Italy. 


164  TURNER 

And  while  the  vision  of  the  triumphs  of  Rome  rose 
up  before  him,  he  saw  also,  and  felt  the  tragedy  of,  the 
fall  of  the  great  Phoenician  colony  in  Africa,  over 
whose  ruins  Rome  callously  passed  on  to  empire  that 
included  well-nigh  all  of  the  world  that  was  within  her 
knowledge. 

There  is  quite  a  series  of  Carthage  pictures,  about 
twenty  in  all.  Several  of  them  transport  us  to  the 
legendary  days  of  Dido  and  ^Eneas.  Then  we  come 
to  the  fateful  struggle  with  Rome.  There  was  no 
room  for  both  these  great  cities  in  the  basin  of  the 
Mediterranean  Sea.  Turner  painted  a  Hannibal 
crossing  the  Alps.  A  picture  by  J.  Cozens  of  the 
same  subject  seems  to  have  suggested  it  to  him  ;  and  a 
magnificent  thunderstorm  that  he  and  Mr.  Fawkes 
watched  at  Farnley  gave  him  the  effect  that  he 
required.  He  had  painted  the  building  of  Carthage  ; 
afterwards  came  a  companion  picture  of  the  decline  of 
the  city,  with  hostages  being  sent  to  Rome.  There 
are  several  Rome  pictures,  including  a  wonderful 
dream  of  the  splendour  of  the  imperial  city,  Agrippina 
landing  with  the  Ashes  of  Germanicus.  None  of  the 
large  pictures,  however,  shows  perhaps  as  well  how 
Turner  felt  the  great  pulse-beatings  of  history  as  one 
of  the  illustrations  to  Rogers'  'Italy.'  He  was  no 
scholar,  acquainted  with  all  the  sequences  of  events  ; 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY  165 

but  the  great  issues  of  history  moved  him  as  a  man, 
and  called  forth  his  imaginative  genius.  There  have 
been  several  Romes.  There  is  more  than  one 
legendary  Rome.  Then  comes  the  Republic  ;  then 
the  Empire ;  then  the  Rome  of  the  Papacy  and  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire.  Since  Turner's  day  there  has 
come  into  being  still  another:  Rome  the  capital  of 
reunited  Italy.  The  illustration  to  Rogers'  *  Italy  '  is 
a  vista  through  the  Arch  of  Titus  of  the  Forum,  with 
the  three  columns  and  fragment  of  entablature  of  the 
Temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  the  Arch  of  Septimius 
Severus,  the  temples  at  the  base  of  the  Capitoline 
Hill,  and,  closing  the  distance,  the  modern  buildings 
of  the  Capitol.  A  funeral  procession  is  crossing  the 
line  of  the  ancient  Via  Sacra,  accompanied  by  monks 
and  members  of  the  Confratemlta.  In  the  immediate 
foreground,  on  a  block  of  masonry  which  we  may 
suppose  to  have  fallen  from  the  Arch  of  Titus,  is 
inscribed,  in  huge  letters,  the  magic  name  Roma  !  Is 
it  presumptuous  to  think  that  Turner  might  do  as  one 
has  often  done  oneself,  speak  out  the  name,  the  very 
sound  of  which  evokes  vast  indefinite  dreams  of 
purpose  pursued,  of  power  gained  and  extended,  of 
splendour  increased,  through  century  after  century, 
followed  first  by  decay,  then  by  a  marvellous  rebirth, 
and  claim  to  hold  for  all  mankind  the  keys  of  heaven 


1 66  TURNER 

and    hell  ?     *  I   am    in    Rome,'   are    the    words   over 
which  the  engraving  from  Turner's  drawing  stands  : — 

Oft  as  the  morning  ray 
Visits  these  eyes,  waking  at  once  I  cry, 
Whence  this  excess  of  joy  ?    What  has  befallen  me  ? 
And  from  within  a  thrilling  voice  replies, 
Thou  art  in  Rome  !    A  thousand  busy. thoughts 
Rush  on  my  mind,  a  thousand  images  ,• 
And  I  spring  up  as  girt  to  run  a  race. 

A  third  great  historic  city,  Venice,  counts  for  more 
in  the  art  of  Turner  than  either  Rome  or  Carthage. 
He  might  well,  and  did,  turn  to  her  again  and  again 
for  the  sake  of  her  marvellous  beauty,  to  which  both 
nature  and  art  contribute ;  the  former  in  the  glorious 
light  and  colour  of  her  skies  reflected  from  the  so  often 
tranquil  waters  of  the  lagoons,  and  the  latter  in  her 
multitude  of  palaces  and  churches.  Of  this  beauty 
Turner  gave  many  an  imaginative  rendering  ;  but  he 
also  looked  at  the  present  for  evidence  of  a  splendid 
past.  He,  in  his  art,  apostrophised  Venice  as  did 
Shelley  in  his  verse  : — 

Sun-girt  City  !  thou  hast  been 
Ocean's  child,  and  then  his  queen. 
Now  is  come  a  darker  day  ; 
And  thou  soon  must  be  his  prey, 
If  the  power  that  raised  thee  here 
Hallow  so  thy  watery  bier. 


AN   EPIC   OF   HUMANITY          167 

Though  his  sketches  may  only  present  to  us,  in 
Turner's  way  of  presenting  things,  the  Venice  that  he 
knew,  it  is  impossible,  before  more  than  one  of  the  oil 
paintings,  such  as  the  one  where  he  has  introduced 
Canaletto  painting,  with  the  crowded  shipping  and 
bustle  of  strenuous  life,  not  to  think  of  the  Venice 
whose  argosies  linked  east  and  west  in  mutually  gainful 
commerce. 

Incidentally,  in  the  course  of  travel,  Turner  made 
sketches  of  many  other  cities,  and,  whether  this  was 
intentional  or  not,  they  appeal  to  our  sense  of  history, 
of  the  passing  of  the  generations.  Cathedrals,  churches, 
palaces,  fortified  bridges,  city  walls  and  gates,  in 
Turner's  drawings  as  in  themselves,  speak  to  us  of  the 
past.  In  one  drawing  of  Lucerne,  for  example,  he 
forces  the  defensive  walls  and  towers  of  the  city  into 
such  prominence  that  more  than  at  the  place  itself  we 
are  reminded  of  the  heroic  history  of  the  little,  moun- 
tainous land.  And  what  is  more  eloquent  of  the 
troublous  Middle  Ages  than  are  the  two  drawings  of 
Chateau  Gaillard  ? 

Mention  of  this  English  fortress  in  France  leads  us 
naturally  to  point  out  that  the  interest  Turner's  own 
country  had  for  him,  as  evidenced  in  his  many  English 
paintings  and  drawings,  was  hardly  if  any  less  historic 
than  picturesque.  Let  us  test  this  statement  first  by 


168  TURNER 

further  reference  to  what  is  perhaps  the  most  popular^ 
and  certainly  one  of  the  finest,  of  Turner's  oil  paintings, 
The  Fighting  Temeraire,  of  which  Mr.  Monkhouse 
says,  '  This  is  in  many  ways  the  finest  of  all  his 
pictures.  Light  and  brilliant  yet  solemn  in  colour; 
penetrated  with  a  sentiment  which  finds  an  echo  in 
every  heart;  appealing  to  national  feeling  and  to  that 
larger  sympathy  with  the  fate  of  all  created  things  ; 
symbolic  by  its  contrast  between  the  old  three-decker 
and  the  little  steam-tug,  of  the  "  old  order,"  which 
"  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new  " — was  and  always 
will  be  as  popular  as  it  deserves.'  Mr.  Monkhouse 
has  already  been  quoted  as  calling  Turner  'the  great 
composer  of  chromatic  harmonies  in  forms  of  sea  and 
sky,  hills  and  plains,  sunshine  and  storm,  towns 
and  shipping,  castles  and  cathedrals ' ;  and  the  de- 
scription is  perfectly  true.  His  works  tell  as 
chromatic  harmonies,  and  cause  a  thrill  of  pleasure, 
when  we  are  too  far  from  them  to  see  what  they 
represent.  But  the  above  eloquent  appreciation  of 
The  Fighting  Temeraire  shows  that  even  where 
Turner's  art,  both  in  setting  forth  the  splendour  of  the 
sunset  and  in  composing  a  glowing  colour  harmony, 
is  at  its  highest,  the  appeal  of  the  picture  to  other  than 
the  sensuous  emotions  may  be  so  overwhelmingly  strong 
as  to  make  the  beauty  of  art  and  nature  subordinate,  as 


AN   EPIC   OF   HUMANITY          169 

in  truth  they  ever  must  be,  in  final  estimate,  to  human 
remembrance  and  hope,  sorrow  and  joy,  clinging 
affection  and  self-sacrificing  love. 

Of  the  Cyclops  and  the  sails  and  flags  in  Ulysses 
deriding  Polyphemus,  Ruskin  could  say  that  he  wished 
them  out  of  the  way  so  that  the  landscape  might 
be  better  seen.  He  does  not  say  this  of  the  old  ship 
in  this  picture.  And  yet  how  he  is  moved  by  the 
natural  part  of  the  scene,  at  which  indeed  one  can  look 
and  continue  to  look,  as  one  looks  over  the  sea  at 
sundown  and  on  until  the  twilight  and  the  dark ! 
'  In  this  picture,'  he  says,  '  under  the  blazing  veil 
of  vaulted  fire,  which  lights  the  vessel  on  her  last  path, 
there  is  a  blue,  deep,  desolate  horror  of  darkness  out 
of  which  you  can  hear  the  voice  of  the  night  wind,  and 
the  dull  boom  of  the  disturbed  sea  ;  the  cold  deadly 
shadows  of  the  twilight  are  gathering  through  every 
sunbeam,  and  moment  by  moment  as  you  look,  you  will 
fancy  some  new  film  and  faintness  of  the  night  has 
risen  over  the  vastness  of  the  departing  form.'  Yet 
for  him,  as  for  Mr.  Monkhouse,  and  surely  for  all  who 
see  the  picture,  this  slowly  dying  glory  of  the  day  is 
but  a  solemn  requiem  for  the  noble  vessel  passing 
to  her  end ;  for  he  says  again,  '  Of  all  pictures  of 
subjects  not  visibly  involving  human  pain,  this  is, 
I  believe,  the  most  pathetic  that  was  ever  painted. 


lyo  TURNER 

The  utmost  pensiveness  which  can  ordinarily  be  given 
to  a  landscape  depends  on  adjuncts  of  ruin  ;  but  no 
ruin  was  ever  so  affecting  as  this  gliding  of  the  vessel 
to  her  grave.' 

Charles  Kingsley  said  that  if  he  wished  to  know 
if  anyone  were  an  English  gentleman  he  would  ask, 
'  Does  he  know  his  Bewick  ? '  Without  making  an 
absolute  test,  one  can  unhesitatingly  affirm,  and,  after 
what  has  just  been  said  and  quoted  about  The  Fighting 
Temeraire,  no  reader  is  likely  hastily  to  question  the 
saying,  that  one  great  help  to  making  an  English  boy 
into  a  patriot  would  be  to  bring  him  up  on  Turner, 
whose  pictures  again  and  again  echo  the  noble  adjura- 
tion, '  Love  thou  thy  Land  ! ' 

That  part  of  patriotism  which  consists  in  a  resolve 
to  hold  our  land  inviolate  by  the  invader  has  surely 
been  stimulated  in  many,  has  been,  as  it  were,  set 
visibly  before  them,  by  his  pictures  of  our  great  naval 
ports,  with  the  warships  entering  or  leaving  them,  and 
by  many  a  picture  in  which,  looking  out  from  the 
shore,  we  see  the  great  hulls  and  lofty  masts  of  what 
was  in  Turner's  day  a  so  much  more  picturesque, 
if  less  appallingly  destructive,  first  line  of  defence 
than  that  which  we  have  to-day.  Can  one  ever  look 
at  the  grim  monsters  of  our  modern  navy,  lying  in  the 
Medway  or  off  Margate,  or  slowly  steaming  up  the 


AN   EPIC   OF   HUMANITY          171 

Channel  beneath  the  guns  of  Dover  Castle,  without 
thinking  of  Turner  ?  Or,  without  thinking  of  him, 
can  one  look  at  the  long  line  of  martello  towers 
stretching  from  Beachy  Head  by  Pevensey  Level — 
where  William  the  Norman  landed — on  towards  the 
cliffs  at  Hastings  ?  One  almost  expects  to  see,  as  in 
Turner's  drawings,  a  regiment  of  soldiers  on  the 
march,  or  a  horse-soldier  riding  at  full  speed.  For 
Turner  painted  along  our  shores  when  the  risk  of  in- 
vasion was,  or  just  had  been,  no  slight  one ;  when  only  the 
power  of  this  island-kingdom  stood  between  Napoleon 
and  the  dominion  of  Europe,  which  was  the  goal 
of  his  ambition.  Two  of  Turner's  oil  paintings,  The 
Battle  of  Trafalgar  and  The  Field  of  Waterloo,  celebrate 
two  of  the  victories  that  enabled  the  nations  to  breathe 
freely  again. 

But  the  greater  and  the  better  part  of  patriotism 
consists  in  neither  defence  nor  defiance,  nor  even  in 
any  but  the  most  generous  rivalry.  If  ever  the  day 
comes  when  both  the  war  of  the  sword  and  the  war 
of  competitive  commerce  shall  be  but  hateful  memories, 
when  the  unity  of  the  nation  shall  be  merged  in  '  the 
parliament  of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world,'  there 
will  still  be  good  reason  for  the  call  '  Love  thou  thy 
Land ! '  And  so  long  as  our  land  remains  sea- 
surrounded,  the  sea  must  fascinate  its  people  ;  for  it 


ij2  TURNER 

can  never  be  but  that  the  thought  of  danger  will  be 
connected  with  those  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in 
ships.  What  room  for  patriotism  is  there !  To  the 
landscape  painter  two  kinds  of  industry,  of  work  in 
which  men  are  mutually  serviceable,  are  necessarily 
most  in  evidence  :  that  of  the  farmer  and  that  of  the 
fisherman — one  must  add  that  Turner  often  showed 
his  interest  in  the  work  of  the  builder.  He  sees  also 
the  various  ways  in  which  both  men  and  merchandise 
are  carried  from  place  to  place,  from  land  to  land, 
from  continent  to  continent.  The  toil  of  the  sea,  in 
both  its  forms,  was  endlessly  interesting  to  Turner. 
He  studied  and  drew  and  painted  boats  and  ships  with 
the  zest  of  a  boy.  Is  there  anything  to  tell  of  the 
life  of  fisher-folk  that  he  has  not  told  ?  He  showed 
them  putting  off  to  sea,  with  wives  and  children 
bidding  them  farewell ;  he  showed  them  toiling  at 
their  nets,  battling  with  the  storm,  running  home  for 
safety,  landing  their  catch,  cleaning  and  selling  the 
fish,  mending  their  boats  and  nets,  patching  their  sails. 
He  painted  also  the  ships  of  commerce,  from  the 
small  coasting  vessel  that  is  beached  in  the  bay  for 
the  landing  of  its  cargo,  to  the  great  merchantmen 
that  go  voyaging  to  distant  lands.  He  knew  them  all, 
and  loved  them,  as  the  sailor  knows  and  loves  them. 
He  had  models  of  ships  in  his  studio.  All  sorts  of 


AN    EPIC   OF    HUMANITY           173 

craft,  under  all  conditions  of  sailing  and  weather,  can 
be  studied  in  his  pictures.  When  the  sailing  ship, 
except  for  pleasure's  sake,  has  for  ever  disappeared, 
what  a  store  of  antiquarian  knowledge  about  it  Turner's 
works  will  be ! 

In  The  Fighting  Temeraire  there  is  pathos  ;  but 
there  is  that  which  goes  deeper  than  pathos.  For 
those  that  go  down  to  the  sea  there  are  storm  and 
danger  and  the  agony  of  death  ;  and  these  are  never 
absent  from  our  thought  of  it.  Out  of  what  depth 
of  human  feeling  came  the  Apocalyptic  vision,  '  and 
there  was  no  more  sea ' !  It  is  with  a  sense  of  vast, 
immeasurable,  impersonal  power  that  the  sea  affects 
us.  If  it  could  be  cruel,  implacable,  vengeful,  it 
would  be  less  terrible.  It  brings  man  to  death  with  a 
blank  unconsciousness  that  is  infinitely  colder  than 
indifference.  To  this  horror  Turner  in  many  a 
picture  has  given  the  most  powerful  expression.  We 
see  ships  helplessly  huddled  together  in  the  storm,  the 
frantic  effort  to  beat  up  against  the  wind  on  a  lee 
shore,  the  lifeboat  pulling  out  to  the  vessel  that  is 
throwing  up  signals  of  distress,  the  vessel  breaking  up 
at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs  upon  which  stand  spectators 
powerless  to  help,  fishing-boats  hurled  against  the 
rocks  upon  which  their  occupants  leap,  only,  as  seems 
well-nigh  certain,  to  be  washed  off  again  by  the  next 


174  TURNER 

incoming  wave.  Of  this  last  scene,  the  Coast  of 
Yorkshire,  in  the  Liber  Studiorufn,  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke 
says,  '  The  cliffs  are  lias,  and  drawn  so  well  that  it 
would  be  possible  for  a  geologist  to  name  them,  and 
the  highest  of  them,  fronting  the  sea  like  a  fortress, 
has  the  haughty  air  of  a  defier  of  the  storm.  On  it, 
set  a  little  inland,  and  in  a  space  of  clearer  sky, 
where  the  gale  is  for  a  moment  less  violent — for 
Turner  knew  the  gusty  nature  of  a  north-east  tempest 
on  that  coast — stands  the  lighthouse  :  the  one  witness 
of  the  watchful  struggle  of  man  with  nature  and  of 
his  monarchy  over  it.  It  dominates  all  the  scene. 
But  it  could  not  save  the  fisher  folk  from  ruin,  and  we 
are  left  by  Turner  to  muse  upon  the  helplessness  of 
man  and  on  the  sorrow  of  his  toil.'  If  ever  anyone 
feels  that  Ruskin's  eloquence  adds  to  what  Turner  saw 
and  reported,  it  assuredly  is  not  so  with  reference  to 
the  description  of  what  the  sea  finally  meant  to  him, 
that  it  was  '  a  very  incalculable  and  unhorizontal  thing, 
setting  its  "  water-mark  "  sometimes  on  the  highest 
heavens,  as  well  as  on  sides  of  ships  ; — very  breakable 
in  pieces  ;  half  of  a  wave  separable  from  the  other 
half,  and  on  the  instant  carriageable  miles  inland ; — 
not  in  any  wise  limiting  itself  to  a  state  of  apparent 
liquidity,  but  now  striking  like  a  steel  gauntlet,  and 
now  becoming  a  cloud,  and  vanishing,  no  eye  could 


AN   EPIC    OF   HUMANITY  175 

tell  whither ;  one  moment  a  flint  cave,  the  next  a 
marble  pillar,  the  next  a  mere  white  fleece  thickening 
the  thundery  rain.  He  never  forgot  those  facts ; 
never  afterwards  was  able  to  recover  the  idea  of 
positive  distinction  between  sea  and  sky,  or  sea  and 
land.  Steel  gauntlet,  black  rock,  white  cloud,  and 
men  and  masts  gnashed  to  pieces  and  disappearing  in 
a  few  breaths  and  splinters  among  them  ; — a  little 
blood  on  the  rock  angle,  like  red  sea-weed,  sponged 
away  by  the  next  splash  of  the  foam,  and  the  glistening 
granite  and  green  water  all  pure  again  in  vacant  wrath. 
So  stayed  by  him,  for  ever,  the  Image  of  the  Sea.' 

There  are  two  stories,  each  connected  with  one 
of  Turner's  pictures,  that  serve  to  show  what  intensity 
of  emotion  was  in  him  and  obtained  expression  in 
his  work.  The  first  is  told  of  the  picture,  exhibited 
in  1842,  and  bearing,  in  the  Academy  catalogue, 
the  title  Snowstorm.  Steamboat  off  the  harbour  mouth 
making  signals,  and  going  by  the  lead.  The  author 
was  in  this  storm  the  night  the  'Ariel'  left  Harwich. 
The  critics  contemptuously  dismissed  it  as  '  soapsuds 
and  whitewash.'  Ruskin  relates  that  Turner  was 
spending  the  evening  at  his  father's  house  on  the 
day  this  criticism  came  out  ;  and  says,  '  After 
dinner,  sitting  in  his  armchair  by  the  fire,  I  heard 
him  muttering  low  to  himself  at  intervals,  "  Soapsuds 


176  TURNER 

and  whitewash  !  "  again,  and  again,  and  again.  At 
last  I  went  to  him,  asking  "  why  he  minded  what 
they  said  ? "  Then  he  burst  out,  "  Soapsuds  and 
whitewash  !  what  would  they  have  ?  I  wonder  what 
they  think  the  sea's  like  ?  I  wish  they'd  been  in  it."  ' 
This  was  no  outburst  of  mere  mortified  vanity  ;  it 
expressed  a  bitter  feeling  that  a  deeply  solemn  purpose 
had  failed  of  comprehension. 

This  becomes  clear  from  the  story  that  Ruskin 
repeats  as  given  to  him  by  the  Rev.  W.  Kingsley, 
who  had  taken  his  mother  and  a  cousin  to  see 
Turner's  pictures,  and  could  hardly  get  her  to  look 
at  any  other  picture  than  the  Snowstorm,  she  having 
been  in  such  a  scene  off  the  coast  of  Holland. 
4  When,  some  time  afterwards,'  says  Mr.  Kingsley, 
'  I  thanked  Turner  for  his  permission  for  her  to  see 
his  pictures,  I  told  him  that  he  would  not  guess  which 
had  caught  my  mother's  fancy,  and  then  named  the 
picture  ;  and  he  then  said,  "  I  did  not  paint  it  to  be 
understood,  but  I  wished  to  show  what  such  a  scene 
was  like ;  I  got  the  sailors  to  lash  me  to  the  mast  to 
observe  it ;  I  was  lashed  for  four  hours,  and  I  did 
not  expect  to  escape,  but  I  felt  bound  to  record  it 
if  I  did.  But  no  one  had  any  business  to  like  the 
picture.'  "  But,"  said  I,  "  my  mother  once  went 
through  just  such  a  scene,  and  it  brought  it  all  back 


AN   EPIC    OF   HUMANITY  177 

to  her."  "  Is  your  mother  a  painter  ? "  "  No." 
"  Then  she  ought  to  have  been  thinking  of  something 
else."  These  were  nearly  his  words ;  I  observed 
at  the  time  he  used  "  record "  and  "  painting,"  as 
the  title  "  author "  had  struck  me  before.'  Ruskin 
also  notes  the  significance  of  the  use  of  the  word 
4  author,'  instead  of  '  artist.'  It  shows  that  Turner 
felt  such  a  scene  to  be  no  mere  subject  for  a  colour 
harmony,  but  a  deeply  solemn  experience,  to  be  faith- 
fully recorded  if  to  do  such  things  were  one's  life- 
work  ;  but  by  no  means  to  be  regarded  merely  as  a 
magnificent  spectacle  by  anyone  whose  work  lay 
elsewhere,  and  was  almost  certain  within  a  period, 
measurable  in  moments,  to  be  ended  by  death.  Are 
there  no  other  pictures  before  which  we  think  of 
Turner  rather  as  author  than  as  artist  ? 

The  other  story  is  the  equally  well-known  but 
equally  significant  one  of  his  replying,  when  Stanfield 
said  that  the  sails  in  his  Peace,  The  Burial  of  Wilkie, 
were  too  black,  *  If  I  could  find  anything  blacker  I'd 
use  it ! '  Again  we  may  take  the  hint.  This  is  not 
the  only  one  of  Turner's  pictures  in  which  the  artist 
expressed  the  full  feelings  of  a  man.  In  the  details 
of  the  magnificent  Slave  Ship  no  fear  of  becoming 
melodramatic  restrained  him  from  expressing  to  the 
utmost  his  horror  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man. 


178  TURNER 

Leaving  the  sea  now,  and  travelling  inland,  we 
have  already  noted  that,  were  we  with  Turner,  we  should 
not  be  allowed  to  ignore  those  whom  we  met,  or 
passed,  or  who  passed  us  along  the  road  :  the  carrier's 
waggon  and  the  stage-coach,  travellers  on  foot  and 
on  horseback,  cattle  and  sheep  being  driven  to  the 
great  cities  ;  merry-makings  in  the  villages ;  crowds 
of  people  if  the  journey  ended  in  the  town.  In 
Turner's  day  whole  counties  were  not  overhung  with 
smoke ;  those  places,  which,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
said,  *  Mr.  Bright  calls  centres  of  industry  and 
Mr.  Cobbett,  hell-holes,'  had  not  yet  the  unmanage- 
able size  and  unexampled  hideousness  to  which  we 
have  become  accustomed ;  but  to  the  worse  than 
folly  of  which  we  seem  already  to  be  awakening. 
Turner's  England  was  not  our  England ;  though 
the  Dudley  drawing,  with  its  sullen  furnace- glare,  was 
a  forecast  of  what  was  to  become  so  widely  spread. 

But,  as  already  said,  the  industry  of  which  Turner, 
painting  almost  exclusively  what  could  be  seen  in  the 
open  air,  inevitably  chiefly  took  cognisance  was  that  of 
the  farmer.  It  is  instructive  to  contrast  the  way  in 
which  Turner  would  represent  a  scene  of  village  life 
from  Wilkie's  treatment  of  the  same  kind  of  subject. 
Turner  on  one  occasion  seems  actually  to  have  entered 
into  rivalry  with  Wilkie,  somewhat  to  the  annoyance 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY  179 

of  the  younger  painter,  who  might  well  have  expected 
Turner,  with  such  great  resources  to  leave  to  him 
the  subjects  he  had  made  peculiarly  his  own.  In 
1806  Wilkie  had  exhibited  Village  Politicians ;  and 
in  the  following  year  Turner  produced  a  picture  which 
he  called  A  Country  Blacksmith  disputing  upon  the  Price 
of  Iron  and  the  Price  charged  to  the  'Butcher  for  shoeing 
his  Pony.  Another  oil  painting,  A  Harvest  Home,  is 
also  reminiscent  of  Wilkie,  of  such  pictures  as  Blind 
Man's  Buff  and  The  Penny  Wedding — but  with  what  a 
difference !  In  Wilkie's  picture  there  are  people  in 
a  room,  people  whom  we  easily  see  individually — in 
fact,  we  are  close  to  them,  amongst  them  ;  and  if  we 
turn  our  eyes  away  for  a  moment  from  them  to  their 
surroundings,  it  is  to  see  the  contents  of  the  room, 
chairs,  tables,  cupboards,  dishes,  represented  with 
minute  fidelity.  In  Turner's  picture  also  we  can 
interest  ourselves  in  what  the  people  who  have 
gathered  for  the  Harvest  Home  are  doing,  and  we 
can  see  also  the  preparations  that  have  been  made  for 
feasting  ;  but  although  we  are  in  the  barn  where  the 
rejoicing  country  folk  are  assembled,  we  are  looking 
down  upon  them  and  see  them  collectively  rather 
than  individually,  while  what  really  dominates  the 
scene  is  the  great  entrance  to  the  barn,  with  its  double 
doors  thrown  back,  and  looking  vast  as  the  western 


i8o  TURNER 

entrance  to  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  when  its  doors  are 
opened  wide  to  admit  some  solemn  procession.  Each 
side  of  the  huge  doorway  and  the  upper  part  of  the 
barn  are  in  deep  shade,  so  that  wherever  we  look  we 
are  still  conscious  of  this  opening  into  the  world  out- 
side. Many  of  us  probably  have  indelibly  fixed  in 
our  memories  from  childhood  the  impressiveness  of 
the  great  space  of  light  seen  from  the  dark  interior  of 
a  barn.  I  am  writing  now  with  full  consciousness 
that  this  picture  is  intensifying  such  a  recollection. 
Surely  this  means  that  Turner  has  seized  upon  what  is 
of  deepest  significance  in  his  subject.  The  picture  is 
not  mere  genre  painting.  It  is  epical.  The  building 
we  are  in  seems  vast — the  ordinary  room  of  a  house 
being  our  unit  of  measurement.  Here  is  space  for  an 
abundant  harvest  to  be  garnered.  Such  as  this  must 
have  been,  one  thinks,  the  storehouses  that  Joseph 
caused  to  be  built  for  the  harvests  of  the  years  of 
plenty.  But  outside  there,  and  vaster  far,  are  the 
fields  and  the  hillsides  on  which  the  harvest  grows, 
and  above  them  the  sky  from  which  come  the  life- 
giving  rain  and  sunshine.  Some  of  those  within  the 
barn  wave  to  the  children  mounted  high  on  the  pre- 
cious freight  of  the  harvest  waggon  out  in  the  open. 
The  intimate  life  of  man  and  the  great  life  of  nature, 
of  which  man's  life  is  part,  are  vividly  linked  together. 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY  181 

It  is  thus  with  all  the  incidents  of  rural  industry  in 
Turner's  pictures.  They  do  not  lose,  but  gain,  sig- 
nificance by  being  so  small  in  relation  to  their  sur- 
roundings. They  gain  in  epical  significance,  that  is. 
Pictorially,  they  may  be  quite  insignificant,  or  mere 
useful  points  of  colour — we  may  even  wish  them  away. 
They  may  at  times  help  to  lessen  Turner's  reputation 
as  an  artist,  in  the  most  narrow  acceptation  of  the 
word ;  but  they  are  of  the  essence  of  his  outlook 
upon  life,  and  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  under  the 
impulse  of  which  he  painted  his  pictures.  The  thread 
of  smoke  through  the  trees,  the  sheep  on  the  broad 
uplands,  the  cattle  or  horses  returning  to  the  farm,  the 
woodman  felling  trees,  the  quarryman  working  with 
his  pick,  or  rather — this  is  in  the  Crook  of  Lune  draw- 
ing— not  working,  but  resting  or  idling,  and  watching 
the  farmer  on  horseback,  on  the  road  below,  driving 
his  sheep  to  Lancaster  market — take  all  these  things 
out  of  Turner's  pictures,  and — well — he  would  be 
another  and  a  less -humanly  interesting  Turner. 

Turner's  fondness  for  incident  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
animals  in  his  pictures  ;  nay,  it  is  surely  more  than 
this :  a  sympathetic  interest,  a  fellow-feeling  for  all  life 
that  knows  labour  and  suffering.  It  has  already  been 
observed  that  almost  as  if  they  were  sentient,  and 
called  for  our  sympathy,  he  records  the  graceful 


1 8z  TURNER 

youth,  the  proud  maturity,  the  pathetic  decline  and 
death  of  the  trees.  His  biographers  have  not  failed 
to  note  his  kindliness  to  children.  We  may  therefore 
say  a  word  here  about  his  sympathy  with  the  creatures 
'whose  pains  are  hardly  less  than  our's,  though  he 
was,  like  many  who  have  such  sympathy,  a  sports- 
man. 

The  dog  and  the  cow  are  the  animals  most  fre- 
quently introduced ;  though  horses  returning  to  the 
farm,  with  heads  hanging  low  after  a  hard  day's  toil, 
figure  in  many  an  evening  scene.  The  delight  a  dog 
takes  in  barking  at  cows,  and  the  preparations  for 
defence  made  by  the  great  clumsy  animals  by  facing 
the  tormentor  head  down,  are  noted  in  several  pictures. 
In  the  Colchester  drawing  a  hare  has  been  started,  and 
man,  woman  and  child  are  scurrying  the  poor  thing  out 
of  its  wits.  A  little  short-limbed  dog  takes  up  the 
chase,  and  makes  a  brave  show,  though  left  hopelessly 
in  the  rear.  Evidently  conscious  of  its  inferior  powers 
of  speed,  it  runs  with  reserve,  keeping  something  in 
hand,  as  who  should  say,  *  we  could  an'  if  we  would.' 
In  one  of  the  Richmond  drawings  two  dogs 
are  scampering  along  side  by  side,  and  may  be 
expected  at  any  moment  to  snap  at  each  other,  roll 
over  and  over,  and  dash  off  again. 

The  varied  intelligence  of  animals  is  well  shown  in 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY  183 

a  Stonehenge  drawing,  where  the  shepherd  and  several 
of  the  sheep  lie  killed  by  the  lightning.  The  other 
sheep  continue  browsing  ;  but  the  dog  stands  by  his 
dead  master,  and  barks  at  the  storm.  Anyone  who 
has  been  at  a  sheepwashing  or  sheepshearing  must 
have  noticed  how  exceptionally  sheepish  the  victims  of 
these  proceedings  look.  Turner  has  exactly  hit  this 
off  in  the  Sheepwashing;  just  as,  in  another  instance,  he 
has  given  to  the  life  the  struggles  of  a  crowd  of  sheep 
to  get  down  to  the  river  to  drink.  One  of  the  latest 
and  most  finely  imaginative  of  Turner's  drawings  is 
Dawn  after  the  Wreck.  The  darkness  lingers  under 
the  clouds  out  at  sea,  while  in  the  east  the  growing 
light  of  day  is  rising  up  towards  the  waning  moon. 
The  clouds  are  drawn  out  along  their  edges  into 
forms  as  of  ghostly,  grasping  or  beckoning  hands. 
The  tide  is  going  down,  leaving  long  reaches  of 
gleaming  sand,  but  a  ground-swell  still  troubles  the 
sea.  On  the  wet  sand,  half-sinking  into  it,  and  well- 
nigh  exhausted,  is  a  dog,  the  only  survivor  from  the 
wreck.  He  faces  the  waves  and  the  darkness  into 
which  his  master  has  vanished  from  his  sight,  and 
barks,  all  for  which  he  has  strength,  in  vain  hope  that 
this  may  bring  his  master  back  to  him. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  Turner  painted  over 
and  over  again  the  full  count  of  the  seven  ages  of  man. 


1 84  TURNER 

He  begins  our  life-story  as  early  as  is  usually  possible  in 
the  open  air,  for  in  the  Rochester,  Strood,  and  Chatham 
drawing,  a  woman  who  has  come  out  from  London 
with  the  hop-pickers  is  feeding  her  child  at  the  breast, 
and  is  taking  the  usual  precaution  to  prevent  the 
youngster  from  flattening  its  nose  against  the  rounded 
surface !  Only  literature,  as  in  Tennyson's  '  De 
Profundis,'  can  begin  our  history  much  earlier  than  this. 
In  the  Mildmay  Sea-piece,  the  little  child  almost  leaps 
from  its  mother's  arms  to  welcome  its  father  home 
from  his  day's  fishing  ;  while,  in  the  youngsters  sailing 
toy  boats  in  the  T)ido  building  Carthage  and  the  Marine 
Dabblers,  we  have  the  innocent  children  of  but  few 
years'  growth  playing  with  what  to  their  parents  are 
symbols  of  a  hardly  won  livelihood  in  the  night  and  the 

storm. 

• 

Leaving  the  days  of  childhood  for  those  of  youth, 
we  find  that  Turner  did  ample  justice  to  that  remark- 
able creature  the  boy.  His  chef  d'azuvre  as  a  limner 
of  one  of  nature's  most  irresponsible  productions  is  in 
the  beautiful  drawing  Kirkby  Lonsdale  Churchyard. 
Here  the  painter  has  found  time  to  manifest  his 
appreciation  of  the  utterly  philistine  nature  of  the  boy 
by  showing  a  number  of  lads  who,  just  released  from 
school,  have  piled  their  books  on  a  tombstone,  made 
a  dome  for  the  edifice  with  a  hat,  steadying  and 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY          185 

crowning  the  whole  with  a  stone,  and  have  then  retired 
a  few  yards  to  bombard  the  structure !  What  the 
apostle  said  of  the  race  is  true  also  of  the  individual : 
not  that  which  is  spiritual  comes  first,  but  that  which 
is  natural.  Perhaps  the  youth  who  is  leaning  against 
a  tree  and  watching  but  taking  no  part  in  the  pro- 
ceedings may  be  taken  as  a  prophecy  that  the  spiritual 
will  manifest  itself  in  these  urchins  in  the  due  course 
of  evolution. 

Another  picture  that  runs  the  Kirkby  Lonsdale  one 
very  close  as  a  study  of  boy-life  is  the  Juvenile  Trices 
plate  in  the  Liber;  and,  in  another  some  boys 
have  been  sailing  a  toy  boat  in  a  stream ;  wind  and 
current  have  carried  the  little  bark  to  the  opposite 
bank,  where  other  boys  are  proceeding  to  capture  and 
appropriate  it,  with  great  manifestations  of  delight, 
while  hatred,  malice  and  uncharitableness  are  having  it 
entirely  to  themselves  among  the  despoiled  youngsters, 
apparently  hardly  to  be  prevented,  by  the  energetic 
actions  of  a  man  and  a  woman,  from  flinging  themselves 
into  the  stream  and  pursuing  the  thieves. 

In  one  of  the  illustrations  to  Rogers'  poems,  a  party 
of  gipsies  have  lighted  their  fire  behind  a  copse-covered 
hillock.  In  the  foreground  clothes  are  drying.  In 
the  distance  is  a  windmill,  suggesting  a  neighbouring 
village  or  hamlet.  Two  boys  have  ventured  over  the 


1 86  TURNER 

intervening  lengths  of  field  to  see  the  gipsies'  camp. 
They  have  just  arrived  at  a  point  whence  they  can  see 
the  gipsies,  and  know  sufficient  of  the  facts,  if  not  of 
the  laws,  of  the  transmission  of  light,  to  be  aware  that 
the  gipsies,  should  they  look  up  from  their  fire,  can  see 
them.  One  of  the  boys  timorously  advances  a  step 
for  a  still  better  view,  and  stands  with  legs  outstretched 
and  hand  on  the  arm  of  his  companion,  who  is  evidently 
ready  to  bolt  for  any  reason  or  none.  In  the  Brignall 
Church,  a  boy  has  adventurously  climbed  a  dangerous 
tree  to  recover  his  kite  ;  and,  in  the  Old  Oak,  in  which 
we  see  the  villagers  dancing  at  May-time,  the  village 
boys  are  risking  their  necks  among  the  branches  of  the 
ancient  tree. 

So  much  for  the  boys.  Now  for  some  of  Turner's 
girls.  He  had  evidently  noticed  that  girls  of  a  certain 
age,  and  dogs,  made  very  good  playmates.  In  the 
Richmond  from  tke  Moors,  a  girl  is  relieving  the  tedium 
of  tending  the  sheep  by  making  her  dog  sit  up  on  its 
hind  legs  while  she  puts  her  hat  on  its  head  ;  and  a  girl 
with  a  dog  appears  in  another  Richmond  drawing.  In 
the  Chateau  d*  Arc  drawing,  a  girl  and  a  boy  have  made 
a  dog  sit  up,  and  have  put  a  sheaf  of  corn  on  his 
head. 

The  large  oil  painting,  Crossing  the  Brook,  one  of  the 
finest  of  Turner's  earlier  landscapes,  owes  its  title  to 


AN   EPIC   OF   HUMANITY  187 

two  girls,  one  of  whom  is  wading  through  the  stream 
in  the  foreground,  while  a  dog  carries  her  hat  across, 
and  the  other,  on  the  farther  bank,  is  making  prepara- 
tions to  cross.  My  favourite  among  Turner's  girls, 
however,  is  one  in  a  Seine-side  drawing  in  the  '  Rivers 
of  France'  series.  A  carriage  is  coming  up  a  hill, 
steep  enough  to  induce  the  occupants  to  get  out  and 
walk.  A  gentleman  and  his  little  girl  are  ahead  of  the 
other  passengers  ;  she  holds  his  hand,  and  he  bends 
down  towards  her  to  listen  to  her  prattle,  the  hill, 
perhaps  by  reason  of  his  help,  not  interfering  with  her 
girlish  capacity  for  talk.  They  are  just  passing  a  table, 
laid  out  in  the  open  air  under  the  shade  of  the  trees  ; 
and  she  is  evidently  saying  how  delightful  it  would 
be  to  stay  and  have  refreshment  there,  while  the  sun 
sank  lower  in  the  west,  and  is  half  inclined  to  stop 
her  father  so  that  the  suggestion  may  be  carried  into 
effect  ;  but  he  will  not  consent  ;  they  must  measure 
so  many  miles  by  nightfall,  and  have  no  time  to 
spare. 

It  may  be  that  the  boy  who  stands  with  his  back  to 
the  tree  in  Kirkby  Lonsdale  churchyard  will  meet  the 
girl  with  the  dog  when  he  goes  over  the  moor  some 
day  to  fetch  cattle  from  Richmond.  Who  knows  ? 
Anyhow,  boys  and  girls  do  attract  each  other,  as  also 
do  older  people  ;  and  this,  also,  Turner  saw  under  the 


1 88  TURNER 

sun,  and  appears  to  have  found  it  mightily  amusing  ;  also 
ubiquitous,  and  often  unblushingly  manifested  in  the 
open  air,  affecting  with  particular  force  soldiers  and 
sailors,  whether  at  Plymouth,  Schaffhausen,  or  the 
Lanterne  at  St.  Cloud.  In  the  Bay  of  Bai<e  love- 
making  is  going  on  between  a  boy  and  a  girl  who 
apparently  are  not  too  old  to  bowl  a  hoop  !  Sometimes 
there  is  a  desire  for  secrecy,  and  then  what  delight 
for  chance  observers  who  see  John  the  labourer  with 
his  arm  round  Mary  the  milkmaid,  and  her  head  slowly 
declining  to  his  shoulder,  or  coyly  turned  away  from 
him,  as  in  the  Malmesbury  Abbey,  where  a  woman  and 
a  boy,  motionless  and  breathless,  are  watching  such  a 
scene  from  the  other  side  of  a  hedge  ! 

The  proper  sequel  to  this  kind  of  thing  is  marriage, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  a  success,  according  to  the 
behaviour  of  the  contracting  parties.  A  sine  qua  non 
of  success  is  observance  of  the  principle  of  give  and 
take — not,  however,  of  give  as  little  and  take  as  much 
as  you  can,  of  which  we  see  an  example  in  the  Calais 
Pier.  Just  as  a  fishing-boat  is  putting  of!  to  sea,  one 
of  the  men  discovers  that  his  wife  has  not  given  him 
his  fair  share  of  brandy,  and  shows  her  the  bottle  with 
threatening  gestures.  She,  safe  on  the  pier,  holds  her 
bottle  firmly  and  gazes  calmly  on  her  spouse,  beside 
himself  with  rage  made  impotent  by  the  gradually 


AN    EPIC   OF    HUMANITY  189 

widening  interval  of  troubled  waters.  What  will 
happen  when  he  returns  home  ?  Let  us  hope  that  he 
has  a  short  memory  ! 

Of  the  latest  years  of  life  also  Turner  was  not  un- 
mindful, as  in  the  Chateau  de  Nantes,  where  an  old 
man,  careless  himself  of  such  things,  holds  a  little  boy 
on  a  wall  so  that  he  may  better  see  some  passing 
pageant,  while  a  decrepit  beggarman  does  not  so  much 
as  try  to  see  the  show,  but  bends  down  to  the  ground, 
leaning  heavily  upon  his  crutches.  In  the  Crowhunt 
plate  of  the  Liber  Studierum,  the  mood  of  the  land- 
scape— a  snow-shower  has  quickly  whitened  all  the 
country-side — is  emphasised  by  the  tree-felling  that  is 
in  progress,  and  even  more  by  the  old  woman  who  is 
picking  up  for  firewood  the  twigs  that  have  no  value 
for  the  woodmen.  At  Caudebec  Turner  saw  a  funeral, 
and  must  needs  tell  us  so,  and  show  us  the  long 
procession  of  mourners  climbing  the  hillside  and 
passing  with  ranks  broken  by  the  long  and  toilful  ascent, 
and  heads  reverently  bowed,  through  the  cemetery  door- 
way. The  river  is  dotted  with  boats,  and  the  steamer 
sends  its  long  grey  thread  of  smoke  into  the  sky  ;  the 
vintagers  are  busy  among  the  vines.  But  there  are 
harvests  reaped  by  other  reapers  ;  there  is  a  last  voyage 
that  all  must  take  ;  and  here,  on  the  hillside,  away  from 
the  busy  world,  there  are  many  headstones  within  the 


1 90  TURNER 

cemetery  walls.  The  sun  is  setting.  Our  life,  like 
our  every  day,  is  rounded  with  a  sleep. 

By  discussing  apart  from  each  other  the  landscape 
element  and  the  figures  and  incidents  in  Turner's  work, 
one  might  be  said  to  have  taken  his  pictures  to  pieces. 
But  those  who  are  familiar  with  them  will  always  think 
of  each  of  them  as  a  whole  ;  and  there  is  an  advantage 
in  taking  separately  the  human  interest,  especially  for 
those  who  are  not  familiar  with  more  than  a  few  of  his 
works,  in  that  it  can  readily  be  seen  how  constant  was 
Turner's  interest,  not  only  in  a  past  that  he  imagined, 
but  in  the  life  of  his  fellow-men  in  his  own  time. 

The  complexity  of  interest  in  Turner's  work, 
art  and  nature  and  human  life,  is  at  once  its 
strength  and  its  weakness.  We  may  say,  if  we  like, 
that  he  attempted  too  much.  It  remains  almost 
incredible  that  what  we  are  certain  he  did  is  the  work 
of  one  man's  lifetime.  We  have  seen  him  entering 
upon  schemes  that  he  could  not  possibly  bring  to  com- 
pletion. From  first  to  last  he  was  ever  experimenting. 
He  would  have  had  a  great  name  had  he  ceased  to 
develop  after  painting  Crossing  the  Brook,  but  he  went 
on  to  Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus,  and  then  to  '  The 
Sun  of  Venice '  going  to  Sea.  Did  ever  Design  seek  to 
bring  into  subjection  such  a  complex  of  Fact  as  we 
see  in  his  pictures  ?  His  life-work  is  an  evolution. 


AN    EPIC   OF   HUMANITY          191 

He  establishes  one  order,  and  then  another,  and  yet 
another.  The  critics  praised,  then  blamed,  then 
praised  again.  What  phrase  would  have  replaced 
'  soapsuds  and  whitewash '  could  he  have  lived  on  to 
become  an  Impressionist  ? 

I  have  tried  in  this  little  volume  to  set  before  the 
reader  a  tramping  artist ;  to  tell  the  story  of  his  life, 
and,  in  telling  it,  to  dwell  upon  his  virtues,  and,  for  their 
sake,  to  say  little  of  his  faults  ;  to  give  some  hint  of 
his  genius,  of  his  sensitiveness  to  the  power  and  beauty 
of  nature,  of  the  imaginative  power,  and  the  sense  of 
colour  and  design  by  which  what  he  saw  was  trans- 
formed as  he  conveyed  it  to  paper  or  canvas  ;  to  show 
his  sympathy  with  his  fellow-men,  and  his  wonder  at 
the  passing  of  the  generations  of  men  and  the  mystery 
that  surrounds  our  being,  which  make  his  life-work  as 
well  a  solemn  epic  of  humanity,  as  a  revelation  of  the 
beauty  and  splendour  of  the  visible  universe. 


INDEX 


The  titles  of  pictures  are  printed  in  italics.     In  several  instances 
they  are  abbreviated 


Abingdon,  122 

ALsacus  und  Hespe rie,  1 60 

Agrippina     landing    ivith    the 

Ashes    of  Cfermanicus,    100, 

122, 164 

Alps  at  Daybreak,  141 
Angel  standing  in  the  Sun,  161 
Apollo  and  Daphne,  99,   158 
Apollo   filling  the  Python,   71, 

87,  151  et  seq. 
Apuleia  in  search  of  Apuleius, 

88 

Arnold,  Matthew,  178 
Arundel  Castle,  128,  143 
Arveiron,  Source  of  the,  139 
A-vernus,  Lake,  13,  99 

B 


Bacchus  and  Ariadne,  100 
Bay  of  Bai/e,  Apollo  and   the 

Sibyl,  5,  89,  158,  1 88 
Ben  Arthur,  145 
Berenson,  Bernhard,  23 

O  193 


Brightling  Observatory,  143 
Brignall  Church,  1 86 
Brooke,  Stopford,  174 
Browning,  Robert,  I,  69 
Burne- Jones,  Sir  Edward,  25 


Calais  Pier,  71,  72,  122.  188 

Caligula's  Palace  and  Bridge, 
162 

Carthage,  Decline  of,  88 

Carthage,  Dido  building,  88,  1 84 

Carthage,  Dido  and  JEneas  leav- 
ing, 88 

Caudebec,  189 

Chateau  fArc,  1 86 

Chateau  de  Nantes,  189 

Chesneau,  M.,  153 

Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage, 
161 

Claude,  Liber  Veritatis,  76 

Colchester,  182 

Constable,  John,  29,  112, 
146 


INDEX 


Cottage  destroyed  by   an  Ava- 
lanche, 87 

Country  Blacksmith,  etc.,  1 79 
Crook,  of  Lune,  143,  181 
Crossing  the  Brook,  54,  83,  88, 
143,  186,  190 

D 

Datur  Hora  Quieti,  7,  101 
Dawn  after  the  Wreck^  183 
Deluge,  the  Evening  of  the,  1 60 
Deluge,  the  Morning  of  the,  1 60 
Dolbadern  Castle,  68 


Evening  Star,  92 


Fawkes,  Mr.  Walter,  83 
Frazer,     Dr.,     'The     Golden 

Bough,'  14 
Frosty  Morning,  88,  122 

G 

Girtin,  Thomas,  48  ct  seq. 

Qlaucus  and  Scylla,  160 

Qoddess  of  Discord,  71,  156 

Q  or  dale  Scar,  145 

Gray's  '  Elegy,'  1 1 

Qreat  End  and  Scawfell  Pikes, 

'45 

Qrenoble,   The  Alps  from,   131 


H 

Hamerton,  Philip  G.,  13,  20, 

65>  94,  HS 
Hannibal    crossing    the     tAlps, 

87, 164 

'  Harbours  of  England,'    94 
Hardraw  Fall,  145 
Harvest  Home,  180 
Hero  and  Leander,  99 
Hey  sham,  132 
Holroyd,  Sir  Charles,  122 


Impressionism,  30 
I-vy  Bridge,  83,  87 


Jason,  71,  158-9 
Jupiter,  Temple  of,  163 
Juvenile  Tricks,  170 

K 

Kinsgley,  Charles,  170 
Kingsley,  W.,  176 
Kirkby     Lonsdale    Churchyard, 
143,  184 


Lancaster  Sends,  131 
Langdale  Pikes,  145 
'Liber  Studiorum,'  75   et  seq., 
125 


INDEX 


195 


Line  Fishing  off  Hasting!,   i  oo 
London  from  Greenwich,  122 
Loretto  Necklace,  99 

M 

Mac  on,  73 

Malmesbury  Abbey,  188 
Marine  Dabblers,  184 
Mer  de  Glace,  137 
Mercury  and  lArgus,  99,  158 
Mercury  and  Herse,  87 
Meredith,  George,  120 
MichaeFs  Mount,  Saint,  loo 
Mildmay  Sea-piece,  1 84 
Monkhouse,  Cosmo,    n,    16, 

60  et  seq.,  no,  151 
Monro,  Dr.,  46 
Moonlight,    a    Study    at    Mill- 
bank,  70 

N 

Narcissus  and  Echo,  1 60 

Nelson,  Death  of,  71 

Nemi,  Lake  of,  137 

Afore,  Off  the,  100 

Nor  ham  Castle,  68 

Nor  ham  Castle,  Sunrise,  91 


Or-vieto,  Vieiu  of,  99 


Pftice,    7"^    5«r/«7   o/ 

106,  177 
Percy,   Lord,   under   Attainder, 

106 

Phrynt  going  to  the  Baths,  I  oo 
'Picturesque  Views  in  England 

and  Wales,"  93 
Pilate  -washing  his  Hands,  161 
Procris  and  Cephalus,  1 60 
Proserpine:    The  Plains  of  Enna, 

100,  158 


Rain,  Steam,  and  Speed,  31,  105 
Redding,  Cyrus,  53-4 
Redgrave,  '  Century   of  Pain- 
ters,' 21,  90,  no,  114,  121 
Richmond  from  the  Moors,  143, 

186 

'Rivers  of  England,'  93 
'  Rivers  of  France,'  102 
Rochester,  Strood,  and  Chatham, 

184 
Rogers*  'Italy*  and  'Poems,' 

100 

Rome,  The  tArch  of  Titus,  89 
Rome  from  the  Vatican,  89 
Rome,    Vignette     in     Rogers' 
'Italy,'  165 


196 


INDEX 


Ruskin,  John,  i,  12,  18,  20, 
26  et  seq.,  44,  60,  63,  80, 
88,  169,  174,  175 


Scarborough,  148 

Ship  in  Distress,  100 

Shipwreck,  71,  122 

Short,  Frank,  79 

Sizeranne,  M.  de  la,  132,  147 

Slave  Ship,  177 

Snowstorm,  105,  175 

Stonehengc,  183 

'  Sun  of  Venice,'  105,  122,  190 

Sun  rising  in  a  Mist,  5,  71 

Sunrise,   -with  a   Boat   between 

Headlands,  91 
Syrinx  fating  from  Pan,  160 


Temeraire,  Fighting,  loo,  122, 
148 

Tempe,  The  Vale  of,  99,  158 

Totnes,  143 

Trafalgar,  The  Battle  of,  171 

Turin  from  the  Superga,  132 
et  seq. 

Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  birth,  36  ; 
parentage,  38  ;  early  years, 
39  et  seq.  ,•  early  art  train- 
ing, 43-5  ;  early  art  work, 


45  et  seq. ;   and  Dr.  Monro, 

46  ;   and  Girtin,  48  et  seq.  ,• 
as  a  tramp,  53  ;  first  sketch- 
ing tour,  57  ;  the  Yorkshire 
Dales,  60  ;   elected  A.R.A., 
67  ;     rivalry    with    earlier 
masters,    68-9  ;    early    oil 
paintings,  70-2  ;    first  visit 
to    Scotland,    72  ;     elected 
R.A.,  72  ;    first  visit  to  the 
Continent,    73  ;    appointed 
Professor     of     Perspective, 
75  ;    in  Devon,  Yorkshire, 
etc.,     83  ;     Farnley     Hall, 
83-5  ;    early   patrons,    85  ; 
home-life,     87  ;      visit     to 
Italy,   89  ;    later  oil   paint- 
ings, 90  ;   Italy  again,  95  ; 
letters  to  Jones  and  Chan- 
trey,  95-9  ;  Scotland  again, 
101  ;    later  journeys,   104; 
last  years    and    death,    106 
et    seq.  ;     his     will,     1 08  ; 
character,  personal    appear- 
ance, etc.,  1 10  et  seq. 

U 

Ulysses  deriding  Polyphemus,  99, 
122,  151  et  seq.,  169 


Venice,  ^Approach  to,  105 


INDEX 


197 


Venice,  the  Dogana,  99 
Venice  from  Fusina,  104 
Venice,  the  Giudecca,  104 
Venice,  Morning,  105 
Venice,  Suburb,  105 
Venice,  Suburb  towards  Murano, 

104 

W 

War,  the  Exile,  etc.,  106 
Waterloo,     the    Field    of,    89, 

171 


Watteau  Painting,  106 
Watts,  G.  F.,  5 
Whistler,).  McNeill,  19 
Whitaker,  Dr.,  65 
Whit  by,  149 
Wilkie,  Sir  David,  1 79 
Wreck  off  Hastings,  149 


Tories  hi  re  Coast,  149,  174 


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